Rutgers Democracy Lab Names National Civic Leaders as First Campus Directors in Newark and Camden

Quincy A. Bevely and Ashley E. Nickels will extend civic engagement work to the university's Newark and Camden campuses

National leaders in civic engagement have been named as the Rutgers Democracy Lab's first campus directors at Rutgers University-Newark and Rutgers University-Camden, extending the organization's work beyond New Brunswick.

Quincy A. Bevely began at Rutgers-Newark this fall, and Ashley E. Nickels will join Rutgers-Camden at the start of the spring 2027 semester.

Housed within the Eagleton Institute of Politics, the Rutgers Democracy Lab was created in 2025 with a transformational philanthropic gift and a singular mission: to strengthen American democracy. Through skills-building, practical experiences and engaged research, the Lab equips students to address real-world challenges and turn ideas into civic action. The new campus directors advance the lab's commitment to having a presence on every Rutgers campus.

"Democracy is something you learn by practicing it, and our hope is that every Rutgers student, regardless of major or campus, has civic opportunities," said Nicholas V. Longo, inaugural director of the Rutgers Democracy Lab. "That's why we're so excited to have Quincy in Newark and Ashley in Camden. These talented civic educators will tap into the passions and experiences of our diverse student bodies to build a more vibrant democracy."

Bevely comes to the lab from Providence College, where he served as vice president for institutional diversity, equity and inclusion and co-director of the Dialogue, Inclusion and Democracy Lab. There, he led institution-wide initiatives that created opportunities for dialogue and community engagement and brought together people across ideological differences.

Bevely earned his doctoral degree in counseling and student development from Kansas State University, where his research explored the lived experiences and success of Black men in higher education.

At Rutgers-Newark, Bevely will work with students, faculty, staff and community partners to expand opportunities for civic learning, democratic participation and dialogue, building on the campus's longstanding commitment to community engagement and public service.

"At Rutgers-Newark, I hope to build on the incredible work already underway to create opportunities for students to practice civic skills and connect what they learn in the classroom to the communities around them," said Bevely. "My goal isn't simply to talk about democracy, but to help people experience what it means to build it together."

Nickels joins the Lab as campus director at Rutgers University-Camden, where she also will be a professor of political science. She returns to the campus where she earned her doctoral degree in public affairs with a specialization in community development. For more than two decades, she has led civic engagement, leadership development and democracy-building work with students and communities, and her research examines how democracy is undermined and how communities work together to rebuild civic life.

Nickels comes to Rutgers from Kent State University, where she is a professor in the School of Peace and Conflict Studies and co-founded and co-directed the Growing Democracy Project.

Her book, Power, Participation, and Protest in Flint, Michigan, received the American Political Science Association's Robert A. Dahl Award and the American Society for Public Administration's Democracy and Social Justice Best Book Award. She is co-editor-in-chief of the journal Administrative Theory & Praxis and has been a Democracy Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

At Rutgers-Camden, Nickels will work alongside students, faculty and community partners to deepen the Lab's work in civic learning, dialogue and community-engaged scholarship, building on the campus's longstanding ties to the city of Camden.

"My research has taught me that democracy is fragile in places where people have been told, again and again, that decisions will be made for them," said Nickels. "I'm drawn to the Rutgers Democracy Lab because it starts from the opposite assumption, that students and community members already carry the knowledge and capacity to shape their shared lives, and that universities ought to be places where that capacity is practiced and strengthened. Coming back to Camden, where so much of my own thinking about democracy took shape, is a gift.