"Active" "Citizens"

The other day I had a conversation that made me think quite a bit about a talk we had a couple of weeks ago regarding active citizenship. I was speaking with a Tufts Almunu when the question of what exactly active citizenship meant came up. I simply just asked what the term meant for him, and waited for an answer. Yet, his response was something that I hadn't thought about before.

Instead of giving me a definition that he felt was right or what I wanted to hear, he challenged me. He asked me to break the word apart. He first asked me what the term "active" meant. I responded for what I thought was a good Webster's definition. He nodded, but started explaining what it meant for him. He began to explain that being active was more than just something exerting energy. For him, being active added the element of achieving something. Yes, one could be active in talking about a an issue, but if they weren't achieving a goal or a belief or an issue resolution, were they actually being active? It's almost like sitting on the sidelines of a game. You're part of a team who is fighting to achieve a goal, winning, but if you just sit there, can you really be considered "active"?

He then began to talk about the word "citizen". He began talking about how people view themselves in different settings. If they see themselves as a part of a group or a feel that they belong to something, does that make them a citizen? For him it depended. He alluded to the fact of how people talk about themselves in relation to their group or another group, in if they use "they", "we", or "I". He also gave the example of if a person is walking in their local park and sees a piece of trash, will they pick it up and throw it out or just walk by and think about how someone else should clean it up? They're a citizen of that community, but are they really a citizen if they just walk past?

This entire conversation brought me back to how we look at potential. Should we only look at people who are both "active" and "citizens" or is there a role for people who may only fall into one of the categories? I personally think that for our project we should look for only those who are both. Yet, I do think that people who are extremely strong in only one of the two words do have a great deal of merit, as they could set a great example for people who are both to learn new techniques. I definitely feel the idea of what an "active citizen" is should be kept in the back of our minds as we continue to look at Tufts, and are now exploring Somerville, for organizations and people to put on the map.