Citizen University, a conference exploring the art of great citizenship hosted by Eric Liu’s Guiding Lights Network, will take place on Saturday, March 23, in Seattle. There is still time to register to attend—and if you sign up before March 1 you can save $40 on your registration fee. There are also discounted registration options available for students, military servicemen, and seniors.

Writing in The Atlantic, Eric Liu, a former Clinton speechwriter and creator of Citizen University, warns that with all the discussion that’s sure to come about immigration reform, we must be careful not to neglect discussing the destination: citizenship itself.  “What is this thing that needs to be earned?” he asks. “What, besides a bundle of rights, does the status entail and require? What do longstanding citizens take for granted and what is asked of brand-new Americans?”

In his latest Time Ideas column, Eric Liu, author of The Gardens of Democracy, takes on what he sees as the real problem with televised presidential debates: us, the viewers. As tonight’s debate between President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney nears (it begins at 9:00 PM EST), Liu has some advice.

We’ve covered before some recent arguments for and against the idea of making voting in some way mandatory for American citizens. Joining the debate now is Eric Liu, author of The Gardens of Democracy, who wrote earlier this week in his Time Ideas column in favor of mandatory voting.

Eric Liu has an essay in The Atlantic in which he takes on the question of what “global citizenship” actually means. His answer? There isn’t such a thing as worldwide citizenship–and ”if you really want to change the world, first be a good American.”

The fourth annual Summer Institute of Civic Studies at Tufts University’s Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service is in its second and final week, but it’s not too late to start following along with the class’s reading syllabus, here.

In his Time Ideas column this week, former Clinton speechwriter Eric Liu calls for citizens to take a more active  role in their self-governance. Liu argues that citizens must step up given our dire financial situation, and quotes former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich approvingly: “if we shrink government then we have to grow citizens.”

Writing last week in Bloomberg, Peter Orszag, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration, argues that voting should be made mandatory. Using Australia as an example of a country where compulsory voting already exists, Orszag notes: “Mandating voting has a clear effect: It raises participation rates.” The United States currently has voter participation below 60 percent.

Writing the other week in Time, former Clinton speechwriter and creator of the Guiding Lights Weekend conference on citizenship, Eric Liu, wonders whether we send the right signals about the value of community service when we use it as a form of punishment or as a substitute for jail.

Writing for The Atlantic, former Clinton speechwriter and creator of the Guiding Lights Weekend conference on citizenship Eric Liu argues for the return of the amateur citizen. Unlike other fields in which the rise of the amateur is celebrated, “the work of democratic life,” he notes, “has become ever more professionalized.”

“I propose to revive civics by making it squarely about the thing people are too often afraid to talk about in schools: power, and the ways it is won and wielded in a democracy.” So says former Clinton speechwriter and creator of the Guiding Lights Weekend conference on citizenship Eric Liu.

For those in the D.C. area, don’t miss this Friday’s school reform conference at American University, “Whither American Education?” Hosted by the University’s Political Theory Institute, the all-day conference will discuss “contemporary school reforms, our deepest educational values, and the direction of American education” and will feature experts on school reform from around the country.

In the spring issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, former Clinton speechwriter Eric Liu encourages Americans–especially progressives–to reclaim their national identity and embrace both the rights and duties of American citizenship. “It is time now for a movement to re-Americanize Americans,” Liu writes. “This means reanimating our creed, cultivating the character needed for civic life, and fostering a culture of strong citizenship.”