KINGSTON, R.I. – Dec. 2, 2024 – Two years ago, Elizabeth Francis and Julia Renaud of Rhode Island Humanities developed Rhode Island’s first-ever civic health survey, a project that allows Rhode Islanders to understand the strength and resiliency of the state’s communities and how they are organized to define and address public problems.

The 2022 Rhode Island Civic Health Index, which was awarded the 2023 Schwartz Prize for outstanding work in the public humanities by the Federation of State Humanities Councils, is a data-driven report “that includes the many ways that individuals—the ‘me’—connect with community, society, and government—the ‘we,’” according to the index.

On Thursday, Dec. 5, Francis and Renaud will discuss their innovative project in the Hope Room of the Higgins Welcome Center as part of the University of Rhode Island Center for the Humanities’ yearlong lecture series “Sustaining Democracy.” They will be joined by historian and journalist Colin Woodard of Salve Regina University’s Nationhood Lab. The discussion, which begins at 4 p.m., will also be livestreamed. 

“URI is thrilled to welcome three distinguished local humanities practitioners who are committed to bringing together the humanities and social sciences in an effort to produce a more vibrant and inclusive civic culture,” said Evelyn Sterne, director of URI’s Center for the Humanities. “While Salve Regina’s Nationhood Lab works on the national level and Rhode Island Humanities’ Civic Health Index at the state level, the two initiatives share the goal of inspiring democratic engagement and fostering a less polarized civic culture.”

The civic health index, which grew out of Francis and Renaud’s 2022 report, “Culture is Key: Strengthening Rhode Island’s Civic Health Through Cultural Participation,” defines civic life in Rhode Island in broad and inclusive ways, drawing from data-driven indicators and information about diverse aspects of civic life to provide a baseline to help community members, cultural leaders, and policy makers understand what challenges and opportunities Rhode Islanders share.

The index is “an essential first step for shared understanding and action to improve civic life through the humanities,” Francis says on the Rhode Island Humanities website.

Francis, executive director of the Rhode Island Humanities, earned a Ph.D. in American studies at Brown University and bachelor of arts degree at Hampshire College. She is serving as the secretary of the state commission for the commemoration of the 250^th anniversary of the American Revolution. Renaud, Rhode Island Humanities’ associate director of grants and humanities initiatives, previously worked in cultural nonprofits in New York and Providence as an archivist, educator, curator, and public historian. She holds a master’s degree in public humanities from Brown and bachelor of arts degree in American history and literature from Harvard University.

Woodard, director of the Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina, will discuss his work at the Nationhood Lab, an interdisciplinary research project that works to counteract the authoritarian threat to American democracy.

Woodard is a New York Times bestselling author of six books, including “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America” and “Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of the United States Nationhood.” A graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago, Woodard is a longtime foreign correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and San Francisco Chronicle. He won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for his investigative reporting at the Portland Press Herald.

“It’s exciting to have two such innovative programs operating within the same small state, and to have this opportunity to bring them into conversation with each other—and with members of the URI community—at a time when democracy seems threatened as never before,” said Sterne. “I’m looking forward to a really inspiring and productive conversation.”

The “Sustaining Democracy” series will return in the spring semester with speakers Eric Gottesman, an artist who leads For Freedoms, an initiative that uses art as a catalyst for democratic engagement; historian Shannon King, who studies race and policing; Emily Drabinski, former head of the American Library Association; and Jefferson Cowie, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of “Freedom’s Dominion.”

Along with the Center for the Humanities, the series is co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Division of Research and Economic Development, URI’s Honors Program, Multicultural Student Services Center, and Office of the President.