L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs

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Wilder School Virtual Lunch and Learn: Our Common Purpose - Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century

Join Miles Rapoport, senior practice fellow in American democracy at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, for a timely discussion based on the report “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century” on January 19.
Join Miles Rapoport, senior practice fellow in American democracy at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, for a timely discussion based on the report “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century” on January 19.

What are our responsibilities as citizens? How can we rebuild and strengthen our connections to civic participation? What does it take to build an inspired and revitalized American commitment to constitutional democracy today?

Join Miles Rapoport, senior practice fellow in American democracy at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, for a timely discussion based on the report “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century.”

The report, an appeal to participatory resilience, “seeks to increase citizens’ capacity to engage in their communities, call attention to promising local initiatives around the country, combat rising threats to democratic self-government and rebuild trust in political institutions.” The event will be moderated by Sara Mogulescu, President at The Volcker Alliance.

Title: Our Common Purpose - Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century
Date: Wednesday, January 19
Time: 12:00 p.m., noon -1:00 p.m., EST

Register here

Questions? Contact Stevan Dozier, director of development and alumni engagement, at doziers2@vcu.edu. The event will be recorded and shared through email and the Wilder School YouTube channel. Closed captioning through Zoom will be available during the session.

About the speaker:

Miles Rapoport is a longtime organizer and policy advocate and a former elected official. He came to the Ash Center after serving as president of Common Cause, an independent grassroots organization. Prior to that, he headed the public policy center Demos for 13 years.

Rapoport served as Connecticut’s secretary of state and as a state legislator for 10 years. He has written, spoken and organized widely on issues of American democracy. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences bipartisan Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, which produced “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century.” He is co-author with E.J. Dionne Jr. of the forthcoming book “100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting,” to be released in March."