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The Collaborative for Compassionate Civic Engagement (CCCE) is comprised of civics professionals and educators from around the United States. We serve as an advisory board to the Civics Corps branches located at participating community colleges. The Civics Corps branches host intergenerational dialogues and help community organizations meet their civic missions.

The CCCE also designs and administers the Civic Service Skills Workshop (CSSW), which is an “open educational resource”-styled learning experience. Through the CSSW, participants may earn badges or a certificate of completion to add to their professional skills set and resume for job readiness and advancement.

MEET OUR TEAM

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Sondra Cosgrove has called Las Vegas home since 1986.  She is a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada and serves as the Executive Director of Vote Nevada, a nonprofit civic engagement organization.  Sondra received a Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with areas of specialization in the U.S. West, Native American History, and Latin American Studies. As the Executive Director of Vote Nevada, Sondra engages in community outreach, civic empowerment, and advocacy for civil rights. Sondra empowers community members to vote in elections, run for office, advocate for legislation, and exercise their right to run and vote on ballot initiatives.

DeAnna Beachley, a graduate of Youngstown State (BA, MA) and Northern Arizona University (Ph.D),  is a professor of History and Women’s Studies at the College of Southern Nevada. An award winning teacher, she is a scholar of the American women’s suffrage movement, the American women’s movement, and social history.  She is currently working on a biography of the Nevada suffrage leader, Anne Henrietta Martin.

Tony Acevedo is Associate Professor of History and Program Coordinator at Hudson County Community College in Jersey City, NJ, where he teaches survey courses, including Honors seminars and online sections, on a variety of topics. Outside of his work at HCCC, Tony has been an NEH Summer Scholar in Switzerland and Italy and a MetroCITI Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he developed pedagogical projects to improve general/liberal education curricula at high-diversity urban colleges and universities. He was a recipient of the 2020 Dale P. Parnell Distinguished Faculty award by the American Association of Community Colleges.

Patrisha Clay is a strategic Higher Education Information Technology leader serving as Chief Information Officer at Hudson County Community College in Jersey City, New Jersey. Trisha adopted NYC as home after living most of her life in rural Pennsylvania. Trisha’s professional focus is streamlining collaborative, student-centered technology in a complex environment. Ms. Clay earned her MBA with a Project Management concentration from DeSales University. Trisha co-chairs the EDUCAUSE Higher Education Information Security Council. Her passion is for women’s leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion in tech. She is an avid tabletop gamer and all-around nerd. Trisha focuses on digital and information literacy and how civics education can improve government, democracy, and social justice in the United States.

Todd Levinson has worked on policy at the local, state and national levels, focusing on helping Americans gain the skills necessary to advance their careers. Working with institutions such as The New York City Mayor’s Office and the Clinton Global Initiative, Todd has led efforts to improve upward mobility by uniting leaders from the private, public and nonprofit sectors.He now brings diverse Americans together in events to improve their communities and country, and also recently studied and taught moral and political psychology at the University of California, San Diego. Prior to this, Todd led personal and professional development seminars across North America and worked with the United Nations to develop conflict resolution initiatives across afflicted islands in the Pacific.

Heather Kreidler specializes in academic research and fact checking and has over 15 years of experience working to inform and advance some of the nation’s most pressing issues with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine  She is also the Director of Research for In This Together, working to help save the environment and repair our democracy.

June Klees, PhD, is a generalist historian and educator at Bay College in Michigan, where she strives to help others see the value of civic mindedness, the humanities, and social-behavioral sciences in everyday life.  With degrees from East Stroudsburg University (education, BS) and (history, MA) and Kent State University (history, PhD), she also has earned certifications in public history (KSU) and distance education (University of Wisconsin, Madison).  In addition to teaching and professional responsibilities, locally she has assisted with two art center exhibits, been a guest speaker for service organizations and clubs, and has supported various community efforts and events over the years.

Alice L Maher, MD, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York City. Dr. Maher believes that the same dynamics that underlie psychoanalytic theory and methodology are at work within the greater society, but popular culture tends to dismiss them or use them as weapons to marginalize, trivialize, or ridicule the humanity of others. She believes that the ability to understand the emotional experience of the other and communicate across divides is a complex and difficult process, one that involves a language yet to be discovered. Dr. Maher founded Waging Dialogue and the Changing Our Consciousness family of projects, to develop the tools to confront that problem in a unique and effective way. Her goal is no less than a change in our consciousness.

Matt Bogaty

Jasper McEvoy is the Chief Strategy Officer of Alterea Inc., an experience design startup based in Los Angeles, and is co-Project Lead on Agents of Influence, Alterea’s spy-themed educational video game that teaches students how to combat misinformation and be more responsible digital citizens.