Syllabus for a Graduate Seminar in a Paradigm Shift in Third Sector Research
"A PARADIGM SHIFT IN THIRD SECTOR RESEARCH?”
PROFESSOR JON VAN TIL, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
Presented at the University of Colorado, Denver
Weekends of July 20 and 27, 2007
This seminar challenges graduate students to think about the nonprofit/third/civil society sector in a way that challenges prevailing U.S. based academic convention. Students are, further, invited to write several “op-ed” statements to clarify and present their own thinking on the fundamental goals and values of nonprofit organizations.
Among the topics to be considered in the seminar are the following:
· PARADIGMS AS WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING. In which we are reminded that organized knowledge, or "science", moves in schools, and that what is most important is often what is least mentioned, recognized, or challenged. We consider Kuhn's view of paradigms, Gladwell's work on tipping points, and the metaphor of "tectonic shift" as applied to third sector studies by Van Til.
· THE NONPROFIT CANON. In which we examine the most influential work of the past quarter-century on the role of the nonprofit sector: the writings of Lester Salamon and his associates at Johns Hopkins University. We probe for the major points in this canon, search for contradictions, examine for growth.
· THE TURNING OF THE WHEEL. In which we note that other voices have interpreted the nonprofit world at variance with the Canon. In particular here, we focus on the work of social theorist Roger Lohmann, himself at work revising his influential 1992 book, The Commons. Work of several other authors, including Jeremy Rifkin, is also subject to critical review by the seminar.
· AN OVERT CHALLENGE. In which we note that an overt challenge to the Canon, perhaps echoing other frustrations with American thought and policy, has begun to issue from several corners of the European continent. In particular, we focus on the work of the EMES Research Network, as led by the German Adalbert Evers, the Frenchman Jean Louis-Laville, the American born Swede Victor Pestoff, and the Catalan Isabel Vidal.
· TOWARD A THEORY OF THE THIRD SECTOR. In which members of the seminar take their stand and develop their own theories of the third sector for new Millennium. We begin with topological efforts, following the work of Pestoff, Evers, Billis, and Paton, and coached by the instructor. We decide if the time has come to choose a universal theory, or whether Europe and the U.S. each need its own. We ask new questions, form new conceptions, move toward new understandings.
SEMINAR BIBLIOGRAPHY
Assigned readings indicated by *
Billis, David. Organising Public and Voluntary Agencies. London: Routledge, 1993.
Brandsen, Taco, Wim van de Donk, and Kim Putters, "Griffins or chameleons? Hybridity as a permanent and inevitable characteristic of the third sector." Paper presented at the conference of the European Group of Public Administration, Oeiras, Portugal, September 2-4, 2003.
* Crossan, Denise, Jim Bell, and Pat Ibbotson. "Towards a Classification Framework for Social Enterprises." Paper presented at ARNOVA Conference, Los Angeles, November 2004.
Dekker, Paul, and Loek Hallman, eds. The Values of Volunteering: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003.
Duhl, Leonard J. The Social Entrepreneurship of Change. New York: Pace Univ. Press, 2000.
* EMES European Research Network. http://www.emes.net/en/recherche/emes/partenaires.php
* Evers, Adalbert and Jean-Louis Laville. The Third Sector in Europe. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2004, selections.
Frumkin, Peter. On Being Nonprofit. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Garvey, David. “Unnatural Acts, Collaboration and Curriculum:Pedagogy of the Local.”
Presented at ARNOVA, 2004.
Gecan, Michael. Going Public: An Organizer’s Guide to Citizen Action. New York: Anchor, 2002.
Gunn, Christopher. Third-Sector Development: Making Up for the Market. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.
Hall, Peter Dobkin. Inventing the Nonprofit Sector. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Hammack, Peter, ed. Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998
Helming, Dennis. The Examined Life. Dallas, Spence, 1997.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
*Lohmann, Roger. The Commons. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992.
O'Neill, Michael. Nonprofit Nation: A New Look at the Third America. New York: Wiley, 2002.
Paton, Rob. "Social Enterprise--Distinct or Convergent Discourses?" Paper presented at the ARNOVA conference, Denver, November 2003.
Pestoff, Victor A. Beyond the Market and the State: Social Enterprises and Civil Democracy in a Welfare Society. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.
Rifkin, Jeremy. The End of Work, updated edition. New York: Penguin, 2004.
Salamon, Lester M. America's Nonprofit Sector: A Primer. 2nd edition. New York: Foundation Center, 1999.
*______, The Resilient Sector: The State of Nonprofit America. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003.
Salamon, Lester M., and Helmut Anheier. The Emerging Sector: An Overview. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1994.
Saunders, Harold H. Politics is About Relationship: A Blueprint for the Citizens’ Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Sirianni, Carmen, and Lewis A. Friedland. The Civic Renewal Movement: Community-Building and Democracy in the United States. Dayton, OH: Kettering Foundation Press, 2005.
Smith, David Horton. Grassroots Associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003.
Van Til, Jon. Mapping the Third Sector. New York: Foundation Center, 1988.
*______, Growing Civil Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
*______, "Review essay on Paradigm Contention." Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2005 (forthcoming).
Van Til, Jon, Gabor Hegyesi, and Jennifer Eschweiler. “Grassroots Social Movements and the Shaping of History.” In Ram Cnaan and Carl Milofsky, ed., XXXX, ch. 23, forthcoming.
Warren, Mark E. Democracy and Association. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Young, Dennis R. If Not for Profit, for What? Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1983.
WRITING FOR PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATION
An aim of this course is to assist students in preparing focused essays for professional publication, essays that take the form of "op-ed" articles and other similar contributions. Such essays have the following characteristics:
¨ They are typically brief (1200-1500 words).
¨ They present one basic idea and elaborate upon it in a focused fashion.
¨ They are particularly useful in identifying an approach with a particular author.
Ø In order to write such articles, the first rule is: "Write frequently and often."
Students will prepare two annotated “op-eds”, as follows.
Ø In your essay, draw on your own experience as an specialist on nonprofit organization. In this essay, you might want to consider the following:
1) Choose a "hook" to interest the reader in your article: a first sentence that presents an interesting theme or image.
2) Know what major idea or theme you want to present in the essay, and stay focused on that idea.
3) Develop an approach or perspective or method that is one of your own strengths (it may be a professional competency) and refer to it in the course of the essay.
4) Bring the essay to a sharp and clear conclusion, usually by returning to the main theme you announced right at the beginning.
ABOUT JON VAN TIL
JON VAN TIL is Professor of Urban Studies and Community Planning at Rutgers University, Camden. Among the nine books he has authored or edited are GROWING CIVIL SOCIETY (2000), CRITICAL ISSUES IN AMERICAN PHILANTHROPY (1990), and MAPPING THE THIRD SECTOR: VOLUNTARISM IN A CHANGING SOCIAL ECONOMY (1988).
Van Til served as Editor-in-Chief of NONPROFIT AND VOLUNTARY SECTOR QUARTERLY (formerly the JOURNAL OF VOLUNTARY ACTION RESEARCH) from 1978 through 1992. He was twice elected President of the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars, and is the founding Board Chair of the Center for Nonprofit Corporations (Trenton). Van Til recently completed a term as a Trustee of the George H. Gallup International Institute.
In 1994, he received the Career Award for Outstanding Research and Service from the Association for Research in Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. He is listed in Who's Who in America, and has served as Carlson Distinguished Visiting Professor of Social Science at West Virginia University since 2003. He served as Distinguished Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland) during the Spring term, 2004, and as Fulbright Senior Specialist to INCORE (Northern Ireland) in 2005.
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