The Center for Democracy and Citizenship will leave its home at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute later this year and move to Augsburg College.

Officials say that the smaller Minneapolis college is a better fit for the 11-person center, which has a mission to promote the theory and practice of citizenship and democracy. The Executive Committee of the Augsburg College Board of Regents approved the move this morning.

The center was founded at the Humphrey Institute in 1989 as the Project for Public Life and evolved into its current setup in 1993.

The story is that Harlan Cleveland, Humphrey director at the time, told center founder Harry Boyte: "There's something wrong with democracy: work on it."

The Center says its "work is grounded in the belief that a healthy democracy requires everyone’s participation, and that each of us has something to contribute. This work builds on a long tradition of people of all ages working together for the common good."

Elaine Eschenbacher, the center's programs manager, said the move to Augsburg is "a good mission fit for our center; there's opportunity for more focus on civic engagement for students." She also said that it's becoming harder to operate at the University, with its increasing focus on research -- while the center is largely grant-funded.

The center will formally move in September into a building one block off the main Augsburg campus.

Some initiatives now under way at the Center are:

• Public Achievement is a youth civic organizing model that was developed by the Center for Democracy and Citizenship in 1990. It is used in schools and communities in several states and around the world in Turkey, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Israel and Gaza and the West Bank.
• The Jane Addams School for Democracy brings immigrant families, college students and other community members together to do public work and learning on St. Paul’s West Side. It is a community-based initiative inspired by the vision of democracy, productive citizenship, and popular education held by settlement house pioneers like Jane Addams, who created Hull House in Chicago in 1889.
• The Warrior to Citizen Campaign challenges Minnesotans at the community level to support returning veterans and find ways to tap the new skills and experience they have to offer as citizens.