Kettering Foundation Hosts 17th Summer Institute of Civic Studies in Dayton, Ohio

The Kettering Foundation's Democracy and Community focus area hosted the 17th Summer Institute of Civic Studies (SICS) at its Dayton, Ohio campus from August 2 to 8, 2026, marking the program's first time convening in Ohio since its founding at Tufts University in 2009. Led by Kettering staff and Tisch College's Peter Levine, the weeklong institute grounded its seminars on civic studies theory in local Dayton examples, pairing participants with host families, cooperative businesses, and community practitioners actively engaged in civic action. The design intentionally paired academic reflection with direct exposure to local democratic practice, giving twenty participants from fields like journalism, higher education, and community development a shared framework for collective problem-solving. The institute closed with a joint session between participants and Dayton community partners focused on translating shared insights into concrete civic action. This model of pairing scholarly reflection with grounded, place-based practice reflects NCDD's broader commitment to building durable relationships and collaborative capacity across the dialogue and deliberation field.

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The Kettering Foundation's Democracy and Community focus area hosted the 17th Summer Institute of Civic Studies (SICS) at its Dayton, Ohio campus from August 2 to 8, 2026, the program's first time convening in Ohio since it began at Tufts University in 2009. The weeklong institute was led by Kettering's Senior Program Officer for Democracy and Community Elizabeth Gish, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer John Dedrick, and Tisch College associate dean Peter Levine, who co-founded the original institute. Twenty participants took part, drawn from fields including journalism, higher education, libraries, community development, sociology, religion, and science advocacy, with half traveling from Dayton and half arriving from elsewhere in the country.

What distinguished this year's institute was its deliberate grounding in Dayton's own civic life. Seminar discussions drew on local examples of collective action, including a cooperative grocery store and city government reform efforts, while participants also shared meals with host families, toured cooperative businesses and historic landmarks, and met directly with practitioners doing civic work across the city. This structure gave participants a tangible link between the theoretical study of civic action and the lived practice of building it, reflecting a growing recognition across the field that durable democratic capacity is built through relationship and direct exposure, not classroom study alone. The institute closed with a joint gathering at the International Peace Museum, where participants, Dayton Democracy Fellows, and local community partners worked in small groups to identify concrete ways to sustain and expand civic engagement in the city.

For NCDD's network, the Summer Institute of Civic Studies offers a useful model for how national organizations can root broad civic studies work in the specific realities of a host community rather than treating it as an abstract exercise. The relationships and cross-sector connections built during the week, among participants from disparate professional backgrounds and between visiting scholars and Dayton residents, point to the kind of sustained collaboration that strengthens inclusive democratic practice over time. Readers interested in the full recap, including additional reflections from institute participants, can visit https://kettering.org/summer-institute-of-civic-studies-grounding-learning-and-fellowship-in-local-civic-action/.