Civility Week

Civility Week: Democracy Takes Creativity

October 12–16, 2026

Produced by the Student Development Committee and the Whyman Center for Transformative Learning.

Call for proposals due July 15.

Democracy must be imagined, built, challenged, and renewed—again and again. Last year, we asked our community to consider what it means to act with courage in a democracy. This year, we take the next step: Democracy Takes Creativity. At Brookdale, we believe that everyone is an artist right now—capable of shaping the world we live in.

In a moment of rapid change, uncertainty, and shifting civic life, we are called not only to protect democracy—but to reimagine it. This year’s theme invites us to explore creativity not as decoration, but as necessity. Creativity as problem-solving. Creativity as resistance. Creativity as a way forward. To be radical is to return to the root. At its founding, this nation was itself a creative act—an audacious reimagining of governance. The Constitution is a living document born of bold ideas about freedom, participation, and shared power. Imperfect, evolving, and unfinished—it calls each generation to continue the work. Now, it is our turn.

From protest songs to murals, from theater to digital media, from grassroots organizing to policy innovation—every act of democracy requires imagination. Protest is performance. Signs are storytelling. Movements are collective works of art. Banksy famously drew, “If graffiti changed anything, it would be illegal.” To create a better world, we have to be able to imagine it first.

Mark Your Calendar

Keynote Event

Courage, Community, Action: How We Defend Democracy in an Authoritarian Era

Kerri Kennedy, American Friends Service Committee
11:00 a.m., Monday, October 12, 2026

Explore Democracy in Any Discipline — with Help from AI!

A Civility Week x Center for Transformative Learning x Teaching & Learning Center Collaboration

Looking to spark civic thinking in your classroom or student programming? We’ve launched a new AI-powered teaching assistant that helps faculty and staff integrate themes of democracy into any subject area.

🧠 How It Works:
The AI agent works with you—step by step—through simple prompts and questions. Whether you’re teaching math, nursing, history, or graphic design, the tool helps you generate ideas, activities, and discussion prompts that explore democratic values like participation, justice, and voice.

💡 Examples:

A psychology professor might explore groupthink in political movements
A culinary instructor could highlight food access and voting behavior
A communications course might compare freedom of speech across eras

🎯 Start Exploring Now:
Explore using the AI agent

Brookdale login required.

Directions:
Once in Copilot, accept the AI Agent. Then, you’ll find it listed on the left-hand side under your “agents”. Use one of the ready-made prompts to start. It’s easy, collaborative, and designed to help you imagine what’s possible.

Be Revolutionary, Be Brookdale.
Democracy depends on us, “We the People…”

Civility Week Community Agreement

We come together during Civility Week to enhance our understanding of, and learn more about, the meaning and importance of civility. We commit to honest, brave, respectful conversation, where participants are encouraged to speak openly, listen actively, embrace curiosity and gather wisdom. Together, we will strive to:

Learn and grow
Listen and understand
Recognize that experiences are perceived
Acknowledge where power and privilege exist; and
Provide space for all voices to share

RevolutionNJ

About COPE

Why COPE, Poverty, and Civility Week?

COPE is an immersive experience, created by people with lived experience in poverty. The “college edition” provides a foundational understanding of poverty and its many tentacles, as experienced by many college students every day. In this way, COPE fosters empathy and encourages meaningful conversation about social justice, equity, and the importance of creating an inclusive community at Brookdale. It promotes civil discourse and thus serves as a building block to creating a more compassionate, informed, and proactive campus community.

About Cost of Poverty Experience (COPE): College Edition

This COPE event is a 2.5-hour simulation that will lead you to explore the experience of poverty through the eyes of real college students. Participation will engender empathy, catalyze important discussion, and empower you to respond to issues of poverty and Brookdale students who face poverty with care, compassion, and competency.

Brookdale faculty, administrators, staff, and students, as well as community members, are invited to participate in this engaging week of programming!
In-person events will take place in Twin Lights I & II in the Student Life Center.
You will be emailed a Zoom link a few days in advance of remote live events.
Please only register for events that you plan to attend, but know drop-ins are always welcome

COPE Event Overview: The Cost of Poverty Experience (COPE): College Edition at Brookdale Community College

Brookdale Community College invites all employees, including faculty, staff, and administrators, to join “The Cost of Poverty Experience (COPE): College Edition,” an impactful and essential event addressing the experience of poverty for today’s college student. This immersive experience prompts participants to embody the daily struggles and visceral realities faced by college students living in poverty. Once experienced, you can’t unknow it. The goal is to drive empathy into action. By fostering understanding and solidarity, the event aims to embolden college employees to craft and execute new plans, practices, and policies to support students who struggle with poverty (e.g., establish an Emergency Relief Fund for students who encounter emergencies (e.g., job loss, unexpected medical bills, etc.); remove registration holds for students who carry a tuition balance; provide ride share cards to students in fieldwork; create paid mentorships for students in career programs, employ poverty informed teaching practices, etc.).

Understanding the Struggle

Many of us are in this struggle. 38 million Americans live “under the poverty line” and many millions more feel the weight of financial burden every day. In the face of rising inflation, the grocery store check-out, the cost of childcare, an impossible housing market, and the historic inequities of capitalism, the cost of living continues to escalate, disproportionately affecting the working class – yet affecting nearly all groups to differing degrees. Today, 59% to 62% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck; they are only one paycheck away from potential homelessness. The average cost of an emergency plunging a family into deprivation is just $400. The “True Poverty Level” in New Jersey, as reported by Legal Services of New Jersey’s Poverty Research Institute, was $72,000 for a family of three in 2021 and has only worsened by 2024. This means that many hard-working people, with seemingly decent salaries, still struggle financially.

Children, Poverty, and the Failure of the Grown-ups

Poverty has a devastating impact on children, affecting their education, health, and general wellbeing. As of 2023, 11.6 million children, or 16% of all U.S. children, live in poverty. These children are more likely to experience food insecurity, with 1 in 6 lacking access to enough food. You cannot learn if you are hungry; thus, education is severely impacted. Students from low-income families are five times more likely to drop out of high school than their more affluent peers. Additionally, health outcomes are dire for children living in poverty, with a staggering 60% more likely to suffer from mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Children do not have control over their life and the policy that informs it. Children lack power because they do not have the ability to organize. But adults can. NYU Business School Professor Scott Galloway asks, “Do we care about our children?” According to current social and economic policies, and their associated outcomes, the answer is up for debate.

The Social Determinants of Health

The “social determinants of health” includes the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age. Examples of these determinants impacting college students include food insecurity, inadequate housing, and lack of access to healthcare. Understanding these factors is critical to addressing the root causes of poverty and related physical and mental health outcomes and is essential to developing effective solutions. In other words, poverty is a public health issue that must be addressed via a comprehensive understanding of its etiology and the utilization of an upstream approach.

The Criminalization of Poverty

Society often criminalizes poverty, imposing legal penalties on those who are unable to afford basic needs or fail to meet financial obligations. For college students, this may mean facing legal consequences due to unpaid bills or incurring fines that lead to increased stress and barriers to academic success. Criminalizing poverty perpetuates the cycle of disadvantage and makes it harder for individuals to escape poverty. “Fight poverty. Not the Poor,” is a slogan born of this trend.

The Importance of Solidarity

Before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, he was in the process of planning the largest multi-racial, intergenerational coalition the world has ever seen: The Poor People’s March on Washington. He did not live to see it. In the same spirit, especially during a time when polarization and separateness is at a fever pitch in our country, COPE harkens the solidarity that Dr. King envisioned. At Brookdale, we can be truly united against poverty to best serve our students. A concerted, collegewide effort to effect change for students who face poverty at Brookdale, a leader among community colleges, has never been more timely or more necessary.

Why This Matters

If systems are designed, they can be redesigned. COPE brings Brookdale employees together to mark the College’s commitment to understanding and supporting students in poverty. By participating in the learning experience as a whole community, we can make this event truly impactful by first understanding the far-reaching effects of poverty then taking actionable steps to support students in ways and to an extent that Brookdale has never done before. Be there to be a part of something revolutionary!