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UNI hires SUNY professor to lead new Center for Civic Education
Allison Rank will begin at UNI on June 30
Jun. 17, 2025 1:29 pm, Updated: Jun. 17, 2025 5:59 pm
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CEDAR FALLS — With the $1 million Iowa lawmakers appropriated in the last session for a new Center for Civic Education at the University of Northern Iowa, the campus has hired a founding director following a national search.
Allison Rank, associate professor and chair of the Department of Politics at the State University of New York at Oswego, will begin her UNI tenure June 30.
She’ll be tasked with overseeing, planning, and implementing the center UNI aspires will become a national leader in “research, teaching, and public outreach in free speech and civic education.”
Charged with fostering relationships with key stakeholders, securing grants, and leading strategic planning for the center — Rank in joining UNI also will hold the appointment of full professor of political science, with tenure.
Her starting salary will be set at $120,000.
"This is a unique opportunity to bring people together — students, educators and community members — around free speech and informed dialogue,“ Rank said of the ”honor“ of being named inaugural director. ”I look forward to developing programs and resources that strengthen civic leadership and engagement across Iowa and beyond."
UNI’s civics education center joins Iowa State University’s new Cyclone Civics initiative and the University of Iowa’s new Center for Intellectual Freedom in fostering civic education and engagement following criticism from Republican lawmakers concerned with “indoctrination” and ideologically-bent professors pushing bias curriculum.
“The center affirms the value of intellectual diversity in higher education and aspires to enhance the intellectual diversity of the university,” according to House File 437, which mandated creation of the UI center.
Lawmakers didn’t codify the UNI or Iowa State civics centers — which those campuses announced last fall, before the Legislative session began in January.
“The university has proposed that the center be housed within the Commons, renovating the building into a hub for outreach and civic education,” UNI officials said in announcing the center in September.
‘Incredible energy and expertise’
At the State University of New York at Oswego, Rank became known for her voter-engagement efforts, earning numerous awards — including the SUNY systemwide Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
In 2019, she was among two faculty nationally to earn a “Stand Out Faculty Award” from the All In Campus Democracy Challenge — a civic engagement project involving 500-plus higher education institutions and 900 campuses.
She’s on a steering committee for the American Democracy Project — a nonprofit, nonpartisan national campus collaboration, including UNI, to prepare informed and active citizens to engage in different viewpoints and perspectives.
Impressed with her work “deepening democratic ideals and civic engagement into the SUNY Oswego campus structure,” the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ American Democracy Project last summer honored Rank with the Barbara Burch Award.
SUNY Oswego Provost Scott Furlong in celebrating her near decade on his campus at the time said she “has reinvigorated the American politics curriculum and civic engagement on this campus.”
“Allison is deeply committed to preparing civic leaders and has been successful because of how she brings together scholarship, teaching, and practice,” he said in nominating her for the award recognizing exemplary faculty leadership in advancing undergraduate civic learning.
Rank — chosen from among three finalists — earned both her doctorate and master of political science from the University of Washington, holding a bachelor’s in political science and women’s studies from Miami University.
“Allison brings incredible energy and expertise to this role,” UNI College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Dean Brenda Bass said. “She’s exactly the right person to launch the center and help UNI take its commitment to civic education to the next level. I’m excited to see the difference her leadership will make for our students, faculty and communities across Iowa.”
In its infancy
In making civic education an institutional priority, the new center aspires to reach beyond the campus borders through outreach activities and K-12 educational programming promoting civic literacy.
Among its goals, the center aims to:
- Promote civic learning at UNI and other universities by researching and encouraging effective curricular innovation, along with professional development for faculty and staff;
- Enhance UNI's civic engagement activities through a range of programs and events exposing students and the public to differing viewpoints — affording them opportunities to engage in dialogue with each other;
- And foster civic learning among Iowa's working and upcoming teachers, offering them professional development opportunities in civic learning.
Although still in its infancy, the young center — under the leadership of Jennifer McNabb, professor and Department of History head, and Scott Peters, professor and Department of Political Science head — already has secured a competitive National Endowment for the Humanities-backed curriculum initiative, hosted a naturalization ceremony on campus, supported a Panthers Vote program, and hosted faculty workshops on how to integrate civic dialogue into teaching.
Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.
Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com
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