MOUNT WACHUSETT COMMUNITY COLLEGE TO HOST FIRST ANNUAL CIVIC ENGAGEMENT CONFERENCE

 

(GARDNER)--Dr. Tom Sander of the Harvard Kennedy School will be the keynote speaker at Mount Wachusett Community College’s first annual Civic Engagement Best Practices Conference, Wed., June 11. One of the nation’s foremost experts on civic engagement, Sander helped to write the AmeriCorps legislation when he worked for Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
The conference will also feature workshops highlighting some of the best civic and community work being done in the region and will recognize the hard work of community leaders in the first annual Civic Engagement Awards. Workshops will feature a variety of presenters sharing their best practices including:

John and Magi Bish from The Molly Bish Foundation; Barbara Canyes from Massachusetts Campus Compact for Civic Engagement speaking on the national Raise Your Voice campaign designed to involve students in the democratic process; student panels discussing a mentoring partnership between community college students and high school students and Nursing students working with a new mother support group and Applewild School’s publication of a book celebrating local veterans and much more.

Prior to joining Harvard, Sander was Director of the Fund for Social Entrepreneurs at Youth Service America: a program which identifies, selects and supports visionary youth leaders with bold, entrepreneurial, and innovative ideas that engage young Americans as active citizens in solving urgent community problems.

Sander is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School. After graduation, he worked as a management consultant at Bain and Company in Boston for three years. During this time he did volunteer strategic consulting and fundraising for City Year and its Serve-a-thon.

After Bain, Sander worked for the President's Office at Harvard University on an entrepreneurial not-for-profit venture, negotiating and consummating the first few debt-for-education swaps in the world. Sander has consulted to the governments of Ecuador and the Philippines on debt and financial issues.

In 1993, Sander was Senator Kennedy's senior policy adviser on national service [on the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee] for the enactment of the 1993 National Service Trust Act (the popularly named "AmeriCorps" legislation).

Sander has provided strategic consulting to a wide range of public, quasi-public and non-profit organizations including: Harvard Business School on their MBA: Leadership and Learning Initiative, Amtrak, the New York State Commission on National and Community Service, and New York Cares. The conference will also feature workshops highlighting some of the best civic and community work being done in the region and will recognize the hard work of community leaders in the first annual Civic Engagement Awards.

To register for the conference, contact Diane Hamilton at (978) 630-9387.