Stern Civic Engagement Lab

In October 2023, Stern Civic Engagement Lab participants surveyed 447 parkgoers across 16 Maryland State Parks about their opinions, views and priorities for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. This experience allowed many undergraduate students to engage with their communities to provide policy recommendations. Students developed crucial skills for their future careers while working on this project. The findings of this survey indicated that parkgoers prioritize land preservation, increased tree planting for shade and educational opportunities. However, these priorities differed across demographic groups and regions.

Bridging the Gap Between Climate Change Policy and Public Opinion

Many Maryland parkgoers report anxiety and feelings of hopelessness when thinking about climate change. The survey showed that Marylanders are also concerned about the impact of climate change on the state and their lives. In addition, parkgoers reported low confidence in the state’s ability to combat climate change. As a result, the project recommended that greater education around what the state can and is doing to combat climate change might benefit parkgoers. 

As a result of this work, Dr. Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz was awarded a Do Good Innovator Award in the Spring of 2024. 

This survey was designed by Danielle Rockmann, Hannah Chan and Ela Dhankhar with Dr. Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources as part of the PLCY400 Undergraduate Public Policy Capstone Course. The survey was collected by Dr.  Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, Noor Tofailli and the students in PLCY 306 in 16 Maryland State Parks. The survey was analyzed and presented by Dr. Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz and PhD students Kasey Vangelov and Sydney Frost. 

All Parks

Western Region

Central Region

Southern Region

Eastern Region

In 2024, the Stern Civic Engagement Lab embarked on a project in partnership with the Town of Brentwood, Maryland. The project involved a survey designed to gauge residents’ and business owners’ understanding of climate change, their practices for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preferences for green investments by the city. 

The survey aimed to:

• Enhance community resilience to climate change
• Inform policies, programs and services for environmental impact reduction
• Increase information flow from residents to policymakers.

The survey, developed collaboratively by Brentwood and PhD student Cam Weinjart and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz in the Stern Lab, was administered in English and Spanish by UMD students enrolled in PLCY 306 as an applied survey experience. Students from PLCY 306 were trained in research ethics and in-person survey methodology. They knocked on the doors of over 600 Brentwood residents and gathered over 150 responses. 

Key Findings and Suggestions included: 

1. Brentwood residents felt they knew a fair amount about climate change and cared a lot about preventing it. Key concerns also involved flooding and the rising costs of energy.

2. Given the other findings in the survey, the report suggested the town could:

   • Spread information about tax breaks and other incentives for purchasing electric vehicles and climate friendly appliances.
   • Frame climate-friendly actions in terms of the benefits to children and future generations to motivate adoption.
   • Provide residents with information about how to garden with native plants and why to do so.
   • Invest in helping residents see their personal role in climate change.
   • Invest in helping residents find job training in the growing green job sector.

   Fall 2024, Brentwood Environmental Attitudes and Policy Support Survey   

   How Brentwood Residents Think About Climate Change, Policies to Improve
   the Environment, and Their Role in Climate Change Mitigation

The Stern Lab has been analyzing survey data from a previous project at the University of Rhode Island to find generalizable takeaways about obtaining and utilizing public housing residents’ preferences in development decisions.

The project at the University of Rhode Island evaluated best practices for building public housing that fosters socioeconomic mobility and community integration, surveyed public housing residents throughout the state, and crafted a vision for the future.

Since 2021, the Lab has undertaken a significant project analyzing the representativeness of the Maryland General Assembly’s public hearings by utilizing the public testimony captured on Zoom in the 2021 legislative session. This project involved over 20 undergraduate, 5 master's, and 3 PhD students as research collaborators. The students helped create the data collection process, watched and coded hundreds of hours of legislative hearings and the individual testimonies of almost 1,000 Marylanders, and cleaned the data and co-analyzed the results.

Key aspects coded included:

• The race and gender of testifiers
• The position of each testimony (in favor or opposed)
• Testifier affiliation (business, nonprofit, community group or individual citizen)

Open hearings in state legislatures were designed to enhance the public’s ability to participate in the legislative process. Ideally, open hearings allow citizens to directly communicate support or opposition on specific policy proposals to the legislators tasked with reviewing and voting on those policy proposals. One of the papers produced by the Lab shows that non-white testifiers are 5.63 times as likely to testify on a bill sponsored by a non-white legislator as they are on a bill sponsored by a white legislator. This project indicates that not only does the election of non-white legislators make the legislature more diverse, but it also increases diversity in the voices from which the legislature hears. Another paper produced using this data found that the population of those who testified was 83 percent white, less than 11 percent Black, and 60 percent male. This is significantly misrepresentative of the general public, which is only 57% white and 48.5% male. 

Additional projects are being developed using this dataset, which will further illuminate issues of representation in state legislatures.

Landscape Analysis of State Public Hearing Laws

Building on the work done in Maryland, Hawa Barrie, an undergraduate public policy student, is conducting a landscape analysis. Every state in the US has different requirements for individuals to provide public testimony at public hearings. This project analyzes state legislative processes for testifying at public hearings, focusing on the accessibility and clarity of the information provided. The project evaluates the clarity, navigability and user-friendliness of state legislative websites, identifying both effective practices and barriers to participation. 

The project specifically evaluates the complexity of the testifying process, the user-friendliness of state websites and the ease with which individuals can locate the necessary information to participate in public testimony. The goal is to highlight effective processes and opportunities for improving public engagement by making legislative processes more transparent, inclusive and accessible to all.

Does Descriptive Representation Affect Who Testifies?

Who participates in Annapolis public hearings? | GUEST COMMENTARY

In 2023, Professor Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz published “The Power of Partisanship” (Oxford University Press), a book examining affective partisanship and political polarization. Since its release, many of its findings have not only been validated but have worsened. The way people behave in a deeply polarized political environment has deteriorated significantly. The United States, alongside many other nations, is becoming dangerously internally divided, fostering the rise of populism and authoritarianism. To address this problem, the Stern Civic Engagement Lab hosted an academic conference on political polarization to convene scholars across public policy disciplines.  

The conference brought scholars from political science, government studies, public policy, nonprofit management and business together to engage in meaningful discussions and exchange research. Topics discussed at the conference ranged from international security and defense to social policies, oversight and ethics. Participants discussed the gravity of the problem of political polarization and the necessity of continued interdisciplinary collaboration. Moving forward, scholars and policymakers must work together to refine research methodologies, develop actionable solutions and rethink how to approach political engagement to mitigate the harmful effects of polarization.

This conference reinforced that, while challenges abound, there are also reasons for optimism—particularly in local governance, bipartisan cooperation in select areas and the scholarly community’s commitment to understanding and addressing these issues. 

Conference Program: Polarization Program 2025

Below are key takeaways from the conference as a whole:

Key Insights on Addressing Polarization

1. Local governance structures may offer the best opportunity for productive policy-making in a polarized environment.
2. Academic institutes and other initiatives can help foster building non-partisan groups based on civic commitment which can help foster cross-partisan dialogue, respect and working together.
3. Some elected officials remain committed to cross-partisan collaboration, highlighting potential bright spots in an otherwise challenging landscape.
4. Changing how we talk about politics could reduce divisiveness and foster more constructive engagement.

Concerns Raised

1. While parties do find common ground, these agreements tend to disproportionately benefit affluent interests.
2. The politicization of identity tends to radicalize groups that perceive themselves as the rightful majority.
3. Polarization is eroding the ability of the nonprofit sector to effectively provide essential services.
4. Congressional oversight has been significantly weakened (perhaps completely done away with), with limited efforts to investigate its decline.
5. Higher levels of education correlate with increased partisan segregation in the workplace.

Research Directions for the Future

1. The field must work toward a shared methodology for measuring polarization across studies.
2. Identifying and fostering motivations for individuals to participate in non-partisan civic experiences is crucial.
3. Research must continue to analyze how polarization affects courts, legislatures and executives and explore their interconnections.
4. The word polarization encompasses conflict, emotions, attitudes and alignment. We may be asking too much of a single term. More precise definitions are needed.
5. Greater attention must be given to voter attitudes, the origins of political discontent and the destructive role of populism in democracy.
6. There is immense value in integrating insights from comparative politics into U.S. political studies to develop a more comprehensive understanding of polarization.