For ALL College Students:
The CLDE Guide to Generative Curriculum Planning
Virtual Forum | April 13, 2026 | 3:30–5:15 PM EDT
Register for the Free Virtual Forum!
The CLDE Guide for Generative Curriculum Planning is a resource for educators who want to make college civic learning empowering for students, feasible for faculty, and renewing for a divided and skeptical democracy.
Join us to learn more about the guide, a how‑to companion to the CLDE Coalition’s call to action: Every Student, Every Degree: College Civic Learning for Today’s Students and Tomorrow’s Democracy.
Download For ALL College Students: The CLDE Guide to Generative Curriculum Planning
Setting the Stage
President Alger is leading a national effort to make civic and democracy learning a hallmark of the U.S. college degree. He will discuss why this movement is so important in the current era, both for students’readiness to navigate a world in flux and for a democracy dependent on “We the People.”
Jonathan R. Alger
President, American University
Principled, Purposeful, Practical, and Career-Savvy:
How the CLDE Guide Connects Civic Inquiry and Problem-Solving with Students’ Goals and Needs
Carol Schneider will share the key recommendations in the Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement Coalition’s (CLDE) newly released handbook: For All College Students: The CLDE Guide for Generative Curriculum Planning, including its call to creatively connect both civic and career-related learning. She will highlight the guide’s focus on “unscripted problems” as needed preparation both for the challenges we face in democracy, and in a fast-changing AI economy.
Carol Geary Schneider, Director, CLDE Coalition
Featured Panel
It Takes More Than One Course: Weaving Problem-Centered Civic Inquiry Across General Education and Majors, with High-Impact Practices Included
The CLDE Guide recommends multiple touchpoints through which students will work creatively on civic inquiry and collaborative problem-solving. Speakers on this panel will discuss how civic and democracy inquiry can be introduced in general education and reinforced both in college majors and in high-impact practices such as internships and real-world projects. Panelists will focus on ways to make civic learning meaningful to students and valuable for success beyond college.
Tia Brown McNair
Vice President of Strategy and Collective Impact, Alliance for Higher Education
Patty Robinson
Faculty Director Emerita, Civic and Community Engagement, College of the Canyons
Trygve Throntveit
Research Professor in Higher Education and Associate Director, Center for Economic and Civic Learning, Ball State University
Carol Geary Schneider
Director, CLDE Coalition
Featured Panel
Civic Learning, College Majors, and the Liberal Learning Opportunity:
What Career Success Requires in the AI World of Work
Speakers on this panel will dig deeper into the civic-career connections that the CLDE Guide recommends and why the AI revolution calls for civic-intentional redesigns of college learning, including liberal learning. Panelists will describe how they are working to embed civic learning into the curriculum and some new research findings that can help us better understand how to communicate about civic learning and connections to career preparation.
Debra Humphreys
Vice President of Strategic Engagement, Lumina Foundation
Yetunde Odugbesan-Omede
Director of Office of Community & Civic Engagement, SUNY-Farmingdale State College
Bridget Trogden
Dean of Undergraduate Education and Academic Student Services, American University
Nancy Shapiro
Senior Advisor, CLDE Coalition
Collaborations and Previews:
How the CLDE Guide Relates to Campus Compact’s framework for Campus Action Planning; Constitution Day at American University
Campus Compact will soon release its new framework for Campus Action Planning for Civic and Community Engagement (CAP). This session will review the forthcoming CAP and show how educators can use the CAP and the CLDE Guide together. Participants will also learn about a major Constitution Day forum on college civic learning, to be held at American University.
Bobbie Laur
President, Campus Compact
Alexis Bucknam
Project Director for Campus Action Planning, Campus Compact
Carol Geary Schneider
Director, CLDE Coalition