NEW YORK, NY — October 2, 2026
Project Pericles is pleased to welcome four new institutions to the Periclean Consortium: Franklin & Marshall College, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Washington and Lee University, and Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York (CUNY).
The new members join Project Pericles following an extensive application, interview, and engagement process designed to identify institutions with a strong commitment to community-engaged civic learning and a desire to learn and collaborate with peers across the consortium.
“We are thrilled to welcome these four institutions to Project Pericles,” said Sanda Balaban, Executive Director of Project Pericles. “Each brings a distinctive institutional context, deep experience in civic and community-engaged learning, and a clear commitment to strengthening their work. Their perspectives will broaden our collective understanding of what civic learning can look like and yield.”
Together, the four new members expand the institutional and pedagogical diversity of the Periclean Consortium while creating new opportunities for members to learn from one another:
Franklin & Marshall College, located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, brings a place-based approach to civic and community engagement. Its newly launched Ware Institute for Civic Engagement works across Academic and Student Affairs, while initiatives such as Reckoning with Lancaster and longstanding partnerships with the School District of Lancaster connect students’ learning with the surrounding community.
Ramapo College of New Jersey, a public liberal arts college in Mahwah, New Jersey, joins with strong institutional support for civic learning and community engagement. The college’s emerging academic structures include a civics-and-ethics requirement planned for Fall 2028, alongside faculty-led community-engaged work spanning disciplines including social work, nursing, sustainability, data science, and the digital humanities. Ramapo’s proximity to current Periclean member Drew University also creates opportunities for regional collaboration.
Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, has built a substantial infrastructure through its Community-Based Learning program. More than 40 courses now include community-based learning, supported by approximately 85 community partners, and the practice is incorporated into the institution’s Signature Experiences requirement. A standing Community-Engaged Service Learning Committee brings together faculty, staff, and community members to support this work across the institution.
Macaulay Honors College, part of the City University of New York, brings a distinctive urban and public-university perspective to the consortium. Macaulay’s Civic Futures framework places civic engagement at the center of its educational mission, and its four core seminars reach approximately 2,000 Macaulay students. Because Macaulay students complete much of their coursework across CUNY’s senior colleges, the institution offers Project Pericles an opportunity to explore civic learning across a broad and diverse public university system.
The institutions’ Program Directors are being onboarded and will join their Periclean colleagues at Project Pericles’ fall conference at Rhodes College in Memphis later this month.
About Project Pericles
Project Pericles is a higher education nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing civic learning to the heart of higher education. Through curricular innovation, faculty leadership, and community-engaged learning, Project Pericles works to make democratic engagement a core component of undergraduate education.
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MEDIA CONTACT: Harry Patton Hou
Program Manager