Center for Economic and Civic Learning

A primary goal of CECL is to build a community across Ball State, Indiana, and our nation that recognizes, supports, and fosters economic and civic learning.

Objective and Strategies
1. Develop relationships with potential collaborators inside and outside the University.
2. Create a peer network to share of knowledge, strategies, and resources that advance economic and civic learning.
3. Work to understand the economic and civic needs of our community, State and nation and develop new projects and activities to effectively address these needs.
4. Play an active role in national organizations that represent and support economic and civic learning.

Affiliated Faculty

David J. Roof, Ph.D. began his career as a teacher. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Educational Policy Studies. He currently oversees the Center for Economic and Civic Learning (CECL) and is an Associate Professor in Department of Educational Studies at Ball State. Dr. Roof is the Principal Investigator of the U.S. Department of Education funded Civic Renewal through Education for Agency, Tolerance, and Engagement or CREATE project, an innovative approach to instruction, student learning in civics, that integrates American history, geography, government, and media literacy. Dr. Roof has been an invited keynote speaker at multiple education conferences and serves on the editorial board for multiple journals. He has run several large projects for the U.S. Department of State and is on the Board of Trustees for the American Institute of Pakistan Studies. He has worked for many years as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Roof will help oversee the overall project and assume responsibility for the submission of reports in consultation with the external evaluator. Dr. Roof will help communicate with all project partners and coordinate activities between Ball State and MCS. Dr. Roof will help lead planning sessions and work with the evaluator and others to make any needed changes to the project.

Anand R. Marri, Ph.D. is the acting Provost of Ball State University. He previously served as Dean of Ball State University’s Teachers College (TC). Dr. Marri’s academic research focuses on economic literacy, civic and multicultural education, teacher education, and urban education. He has been awarded more than $6.5 million, including grant from the Spencer Foundation, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the New York State Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education, Ball State Teachers College, Columbia University Trustee Joyce Cowin, and the Teagle Foundation. As Co-PI, Dr. Marri will ensure project fidelity by meeting regularly with the PI and communicating with Ball State’s upper administration. Dr. Marri’s consistent contact with the provost and university president will ensure continued administrative support for the project.

Trygve Throntveit, Ph.D. has served as the Director of Strategic Partnership at the Minnesota Humanities Center, Director and Co-Founder of the Institute for Public Life and Work, and Global Fellow for History and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Trained as a historian of American political thought, American political development, and US foreign policy, Throntveit has spent most of his career writing and teaching about diverse conceptions of democracy. His work has expanded to include organizing diverse citizens, to enhance the overall ecology of democracy through commons-building work across differences. He co-organized and led the Spencer-funded Minnesota Civic Studies Initiative, which convened Minnesotans from diverse cultural, ideological, and professional backgrounds in a two-year series of monthly meetings to build trust, leverage networks, and identify areas of common concern and potential collaboration. Throntveit also co-organized and led one of the efforts to emerge from MNCIS, the Ramsey County Civic Project, which facilitates discussions of controversial topics in productive ways. At the Minnesota Humanities Center, Throntveit has organized and facilitated several statewide virtual events designed to foster deliberation and build civic capacity. Throntveit co-leads the Teagle-funded project “Third Way Civics: Preparing Undergraduates for Lives of Moral Integrity and Public Purpose,” an effort to help undergraduates build the foundations of a values-based but pluralistic, action-oriented but non-polarizing civic identity through a rigorous course in “Key Civic Sources and Essential Civic Skills.” Throntveit was Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies in History at Harvard.