DCI Posts

DCI Publishes its Fourth Annual Report!

September 19, 2024 by Graham Bullock Leave a Comment

Four Deliberative Forums, 10 expert panelists, 15 Student Fellows, 22 Deliberative Pedagogy Collaborative Faculty Fellows, 39 D Teams, and over 1000 Davidson students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members who participated in facilitated deliberations on challenging and contentious issues facing our society…2023-24 was a busy year for the DCI! The range and depth of this work is captured in the DCI’s fourth Annual Report that was just published on its website. We’d like to share a few highlights from the report and encourage you to check it out yourself as well. We hope that it will inspire you to join the new and continuing programs that the DCI is planning for the coming year.

The year began with our second annual Fall Semester Kickoff Party and our fifth Deliberation Facilitator Training Program, which trained over 50 people in how to moderate challenging conversations on difficult topics. They included our fourth cohort of DCI Student Fellows and our third cohort of DeeP Faculty Fellows, who came from 13 different colleges and universities from across the country. The student fellows went on to host our Deliberative Forums, D Teams, Commons Conversations, Deliberating GOATs event, and their own personal deliberation projects, while the Faculty Fellows developed and taught courses that systematically incorporated more deliberation about contentious topics into them.

The DCI hosted Christy Vines, CEO and President of the Ideos Institute, for a series of public lectures, workshops, class visits, and small group discussions with students. Vines focuses on empathic intelligence in her work, and her public lecture was titled, Faith, Race, and Politics: Can empathy help bridge our divides in a polarized world? Her visit helped the DCI and the Davidson community grapple with challenging questions related to identity, public discourse, and the pursuit of justice in a pluralistic society.

The DCI’s newly re-imagined Commons Conversations series featured Davidson faculty and staff who hosted discussions on topics related to their expertise. One of the DCI’s forums also highlighted the expertise of Davidson faculty on challenges facing democracy around the world, from Europe to Asia to Africa. The DCI continued to collaborate with academic departments, co-curricular programs, and community partners throughout the year. For example, its final forum of the year on Guns in America was co-sponsored with the Davidson College Democrats, Davidson College Republicans, Davidson College Libertarians, Center for Political Engagement, and the Political Science Department.

The work of the DCI also extended last year beyond Davidson, as it co-organized the first North Carolina Campus Discourse Leaders Conference with colleagues from UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte, Elon University, and North Carolina Campus Engagement. Hosted on the Chapel Hill campus, the conference brought together over 40 faculty and staff from public and private institutions of higher education from across the state of North Carolina to connect, share, and learn about how to best foster more productive discourse about difficult political and social issues in the classroom, on campus, and with the community.

Suffice to say, it was a rich and rewarding year, and provides a solid foundation for the exciting opportunities that the DCI will be pursuing in the year ahead. Check out the annual report at the link below, stay tuned for more info about our upcoming programs that are coming soon!

DCI Fellows Present a Mock Deliberation on Free Speech and Inclusion at the VMC

July 31, 2024 by Graham Bullock Leave a Comment

Since its inception, the DCI has participated in Davidson’s daylong celebration of student intellectual achievement called the Verna Miller Case (VMC) Symposium. DCI Fellows have presented posters and given presentations on the work of the DCI, and it has been a great opportunity for them to share their work with the Davidson community.

This year we wanted to do something a little more dynamic and interactive to capture the spirit and ethos of the DCI. And so a team of Fellows got together and designed an hour-long event that actively demonstrated the DCI’s key features and contributions to creating a more deliberative culture on and off campus.

Photo of Mishti Mookherjee standing behind a Davidson College podium, speaking to the public.

It included a mock deliberation on the relationship between free speech and inclusion that highlighted moves that both deliberators and facilitators can make to foster more productive deliberations. The mock deliberation did not shy away from engaging with some of the most contentious aspects of the issue at hand, but tried to demonstrate how we can engage constructively and respectfully with them.

The event also included short summaries by the Fellows about their deliberation projects that they designed on issues important to them personally. It concluded with an opportunity for audience members to deliberate among themselves on a range of different topics.

The event wonderfully displayed the range and depth of deliberation that the Fellows engaged in and the set of skills they learned over the course of the 2023-24 academic year. It nicely complemented the other types of amazing work highlighted by the Symposium that Davidson students engage in on campus, from research in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities to achievements in the performing and visual arts to collaborations with local communities and organizations on pressing social challenges.

In many ways, the DCI brings together these different threads of the liberal arts – rigorous research, creative work, and civic engagement – and applies them to the critical project of fostering constructive conversations across differences on issues that matter deeply to our society.

Check out the video highlights of the DCI’s symposium event below. It features an introduction to the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative by DCI Senior Fellow and Co-Convener Laegan Smith ’24 followed by a mock deliberation featuring Laegan, Stephen Walker ’26, Emre Guvenilir ’25, Auden White ’26, Mishti Mookherjee ’27, and Arshi Hussain ’26. These and other DCI Fellows then introduce their personal deliberation projects. Check it out – it’s a great way to learn about the incredible work that Davidson students are doing as part of the DCI.

A New Assistant Director Joins the DCI!

July 26, 2024 by Graham Bullock Leave a Comment

The DCI is happy to share that Willow Paul is our new Assistant Director! Willow will be assisting with the development, implementation, and assessment of the DCI’s programs and operations. Willow earned her B.A. and M.A. in Communication Studies from Colorado State University with a specialization in Deliberative Practice, making her particularly well-suited to help lead the DCI’s efforts in creating opportunities for productive dialogue and deliberation in diverse classroom settings, outside of the classroom, and in the community.

Willow has conducted in-depth research on deliberative democracy, facilitation training, and public discourse initiatives. Her master’s thesis, “Healing a Divided Democracy,” provides important insights on efforts to bridge divides in hyperpolarized societies. Willow also served on the leadership team at Colorado State’s Center for Public Deliberation and has extensive experience designing deliberative processes, facilitating difficult conversations, and conducting research on deliberative practices. Willow’s dedication to supporting the DCI’s mission is grounded in a deep appreciation for the diverse ideological landscape of the United States. She is deeply committed to this work, and her extensive research and practitioner experience will enable her to make significant contributions to expanding the impact that the DCI has had thus far.

All to say, we are excited that Willow has joined the DCI team! Watch out for blog posts and emails from Willow, and say hi to her if you see her around campus or in the community.

A 4th of July Message of Hope: The DCI is Part of an Important and Growing Movement

July 2, 2024 by Graham Bullock

Happy Fourth of July! On this day celebrating American independence, many Americans are no doubt feeling a deep sense of unease about the country’s politics. In a June 2024 Gallup poll, 77% of Americans reported they were dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States. In 2023, 79% of Americans described American politics in negative terms, 65% said they were exhausted by politics, and 61% reported that political conversations with people they disagree with are stressful and frustrating. Only 10% felt hopeful about US politics.

These feelings are reinforced by a constant bombardment of negative stories in the news media and on social media. The images and narratives emerging in the midst of the campus protests that occurred this spring may have been particularly disheartening, regardless of where you fall on the issues involved. So I wanted to share with you some good news that might give you at least a little bit of hope on this 248^th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

This past year, the DCI’s Assistant Director Sara Copic and I participated in a Bridging Differences Community of Practice hosted by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. This group included 28 deliberation scholars and practitioners from across the United States who are working earnestly to foster more productive dialogue on their college campuses. They came from large public and private universities, medical colleges, law schools, community colleges, and liberal arts colleges like Davidson.

We met regularly as a large cohort to hear from experts in the field on topics such as the science and practice of listening, the psychology of intergroup processes, and the measurement and evaluation of dialogue outcomes. We were also split into small groups who met separately to discuss our progress on our work, challenges that have come up, and questions we had for one another. My group had representatives from Stanford University, Providence College, the University of Alabama, and California State University East Bay, and it was fascinating to hear about everyone’s different experiences with bridging divides on their campuses.

What I took away from this experience was a sense that a lot of good and smart people are working creatively, thoughtfully, and tirelessly on building connections across social and political differences. Even though you may not see it and it is not the first thing that comes up on your newsfeed, there is a solid and growing community – for example, over 200 campus leaders have participated in the Greater Good Science Center’s Bridging Differences in Higher Education Learning Fellowship since its inception – engaged in this work. From the conversations I participated in as a part of this community, I was deeply impressed by everyone’s commitment to fostering productive conversations on challenging topics, despite the challenges they face.

I also saw even more clearly how the DCI is an important part of this work. As innovative and active as we are, we may often feel that we are swimming alone in a toxic sea of hyper-polarization. But we are in fact connected to an extensive network of efforts with similar goals and methods that is building more deliberative cultures and communities across the country. The movement to engage more productively in political conversation is real and growing, and the DCI – and anyone who has participated in a D Team or Deliberative Forum or been a member of the DeeP Collaborative – is contributing to the growth and dynamism of that movement. As we examine other deliberation programs, this is a point we make frequently to our DCI Fellows, but it is worth reinforcing among our wider community as well.

As an election season that threatens to be one of the most acrimonious and rancorous in recent memory gets underway, the challenges to this work are no doubt significant. But just as the Continental Congress overcame the immeasurable odds against them and came together to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (the reimagined 1776 musical that I saw last year provides a trenchant reminder of their difficulties), so too can we find ways to bridge our differences in the months and years to come.

DCI Co-Organizes Inaugural North Carolina Campus Discourse Leaders Conference

June 28, 2024 by Graham Bullock

Faculty and staff who work on improving public discourse on college campuses can often feel disconnected from similar efforts at other institutions, even those that are very nearby. The Deliberative Citizenship Initiative recently collaborated with several other organizations to organize an opportunity for these public discourse scholars and practitioners to share ideas, practices, and challenges with one another.

On April 5, the DCI, the Program for Public Discourse at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Kernodle Center for Civic Life at Elon University, and the Free Expression and Constructive Dialogue Task Force at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and NC Campus Engagement (a consortium of 41 higher education institutions in North Carolina) partnered to host the inaugural North Carolina Campus Discourse Leaders Conference.

Over 40 faculty and staff members representing 18 different institutions of higher education from across North Carolina attended the day-long conference. They included participants from state universities (e.g., North Carolina State, Western Carolina University), private universities (e.g., Duke University, Wake Forest University), historically black colleges and universities (e.g., North Carolina Central University, Winston Salem State University), and community colleges (e.g., Wake Tech Community College, Durham Technical Community College) and came from the eastern, western, central, and southern regions of the state.

Hosted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the conference provided an opportunity for participants to share their approaches and challenges that they have experienced at their institutions. They were also able to learn from each other in highly interactive breakout discussions with colleagues at institutions that are both similar to and different from their own.

The conference was structured into four sessions, each beginning with an introductory presentation on a key topic of discourse from the co-organizing partners before opening into round-table discussions. Campus discourse leaders shared the strategies they have been implementing in their own programs, discussed challenges they have been faced with, and offered future points of discussion. Session topics included:

The Context of Public Discourse on College Campuses Today
Strategies for Fostering Robust Discourse in the Classroom
Strategies for Fostering Robust Discourse on Campus and in the Community
Strategies for Connecting and Collaborating across Campuses

The NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference inspired a commitment to ongoing collaboration and support among attendees and organizers, with plans already underway for future events and initiatives aimed at advancing the mission of dialogue and discourse on college campuses statewide.

Participants left the conference with a new network of colleagues from across North Carolina, new opportunities for collaboration on projects related to public discourse, and new ideas to consider and implement back on their campuses.

Special recognition is due to the great team of partners who made this event possible. Kevin Marinelli and Alissa Bouttavong from the UNC-Chapel Hill Program for Public Discourse were amazing hosts who spearheaded the logistics of the conference and worked closely with the co-organizing planning team of Leslie Garvin (NC Campus Engagement), Graham Bullock (Davidson College), Matthew Metzgar (UNC Charlotte), Anne Moore (UNC Charlotte), and Andrew Moffa (Elon University). The team met regularly for nearly a year to organize the conference and is looking forward to following up on its success in the months to come.