Deliberative Citizenship Initiative

Building Democracy One Conversation at a Time

Events

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

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Fellows at VMC Symposium

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.

Laegan Smith speaking.

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.

DCI Co-Organizes Inaugural North Carolina Campus Discourse Leaders Conference

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Participant presenting at conference

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.

Participants discussing around a table

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
Participants discussing around a table

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.

Leslie Garvin presenting at the NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference.
Leslie Garvin from North Carolina Campus Engagement
presenting at the NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference.
Graham Bullock presenting at the NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference.
Conference co-organizer Graham Bullock from Davidson College presenting at the
NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference.

Conference host and co-organizer Kevin Marinelli from UNC-Chapel Hill presenting at the
NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference.

Kevin Marinelli presenting at the NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference.
Matt presenting at the NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference.
Matt Metzgar from UNC Charlotte presenting at the NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference.

Commons Conversation Reflection: Discussing the First Year Experience with Dean McCrae

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Commons Conversation flyer with Dean McCrae

By Graham Bullock, Logan Jain ’26, and Grace Gallagher ’26

On Thursday, April 4, Dean of Students Byron McCrae hosted a discussion with students about the first year experience at Davidson as part of the DCI’s ongoing Commons Conversation series. Dean McCrae framed the discussion with some of his initial thoughts and questions and then opened it up for the students to share their impressions related to the first year experience at Davidson.

Students quickly began to ask questions about the goals of first-year programming. Do we want students to make connections and feel at home? Should we focus more on affinity-based programming for different identity groups (e.g., first gen, minority students, etc.)? Or do we want to work on building a broader sense of community and creating groups that include a cross-section of identities?

One theme of the conversation was the schedule and design of freshman orientation. They discussed the tradeoff between having too many required events that exhaust students and giving them a comprehensive enough introduction to life at Davidson – and to each other. Along those lines, the value of class trips also came up – last year the entire first year class went to a Charlotte FC game together.  

The question of whether there are important topic areas that are not currently covered during Orientation was also raised, which precipitated a discussion about whether orientation programs should be extended throughout the whole first semester. There was a sense among some of the conversation participants that orientation shouldn’t end on the first day of classes, and that we need to ensure that first year students continue to receive the necessary support and have access to resources to ease the academic and social transition as they need them.

Others argued that there are a lot of resources currently available but students don’t take advantage of them. How do we increase the publicity of these resources? Some suggestions included creating a website with first-year resources (versus the current strategy of a pamphlet/handbook) as well as de-stigmatizing the use of these resources.

The value of the holistic advising program was discussed, and questions were raised about how students are paired with their advisors and what the tradeoffs of having a staff vs. faculty advisor are. Some students reported having advisors who were really helpful, while others reported that they were helpful in some regards but less helpful in others. Some of the students were unaware that advisors had funding to host social events with their advisees; others wondered how first-year students can be convinced that it is worth their time to show up at these and other events hosted for them.

Another general theme was whether the College should continue to work within the current orientation framework or develop new methods to introduce first years to Davidson. One specific idea that came up was to create more Pre-Orientation Programs that build on the experiences of Davidson Outdoors, the International Students Program, the STRIDE Program, and other similar initiatives.

All in all, it was a rich conversation that generated lots of ideas, questions, and areas of both agreement and disagreement. Dean McCrae took lots of notes; it was a great opportunity for him to both share this thoughts on the topic as well as hear directly from students about their perspectives on what worked well for them and what might be improved in the future.   

“This was Fantastic:” Nearly 170 Attend DCI Guns in America Deliberative Forum

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DCI Deliberative Forum photo.

“I’m so very grateful for Davidson’s DCI initiative that provides a thoughtful, meaningful, and challenging (in all the good ways a functioning democracy requires that) opportunity to engage with fellow citizens.“

DCI Guns in America Deliberative Forum Participant

On Tuesday, April 2, nearly 170 people – 94 online on Zoom and 69 in-person at Davidson College’s Lilly Family Gallery (a record number for a DCI Forum) – gathered to deliberate about one of the most contentious and challenging topics in American politics, and they did so authentically, respectfully, and thoughtfully. The topic – Guns in America: How Should We Balance Concerns about Gun Rights and Gun Risks? – was first discussed by a panel of experts and advocates who came from a wide range of backgrounds and expressed a wide range of perspectives.

They included Shannon Klug, a Former Air Force Colonel who has worked with Moms Demand Action, Be SMART, and Everytown’s Veterans Advisory Council), Philip Smith, the President of the National African Americans Gun Association, Ray Nothstine, a former Second Amendment Research Fellow at the John Locke Foundation, and Dominic Erdozain, a Research Fellow at Emory University and author of One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts our History and Threatens our Democracy. Their discussion was moderated by Dan Aldridge, Professor of History, Chair of Africana Studies, and a former DCI Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Faculty Fellow, while Graham Bullock, Faculty Director of the DCI and Associate Professor of Political Science, served as the event’s MC.

Photo of panelists and organizers standing together.
From Left: Ray Nothstine, Philip Smith, Shannon Klug, Dominic Erdozain, Dan Aldridge, and Graham Bullock

 The event was co-sponsored by Davidson College’s Deliberative Citizenship Initiative, Center for Political Engagement, College Democrats, College Libertarians, College Republicans, and Political Science Department. Representatives from each of the student political organizations asked questions of the panelists during the event, building on Dr. Aldridge’s facilitation of the discussion.

Instead of being lined up in a row of chairs, the panelists were seated around a roundtable on a stage, which enabled them to talk to each other more easily. A 360 degree video camera (a “Meeting Owl”) was placed in the center of the table, which enabled the conversation to be streamed live to participants who joined over Zoom. The video stream, which is available to view below, was also projected on a screen behind the panelists so people attending in-person could see who was speaking in case their direct view was blocked. This was the first time the DCI used this format, and it was widely praised as a helpful and engaging innovation.

The panel discussion set the stage for an in-depth hour-long opportunity for audience members to explore the issues associated with guns in America among themselves. They broke up into small groups of 6-8 people who included Davidson students, faculty, staff, community members, and alums. Each discussion was facilitated by a trained DCI facilitator, most of whom were DCI student fellows but also included several faculty and community members. They introduced a series of discussion questions shared in a Deliberation Guide that was distributed to participants both before and at the event. The guide also provided some background information and a summary of different viewpoints on the topic so everyone had access to a baseline of knowledge going into the discussion.

The short video below provides some short clips of these discussions as well as a window into how the panelists’ roundtable deliberation was setup in the room.

These were not easy discussions and participants explored both their areas of disagreement and agreement. But they did so with kindness, curiosity, and courage, and were generally very satisfied with the experience; 82% were either satisfied or very satisfied with their small group discussion, and 98% reported they are likely or highly likely to participate in another Deliberative Forum in the future. Check out some of their comments about the event below:

  • “We live in such angry times, where every controversial topic becomes a zero sum game that is impossible to win. I’m so very grateful for Davidson’s DCI initiative that provides a thoughtful, meaningful, and challenging (in all the good ways a functioning democracy requires that) opportunity to engage with fellow citizens. It is empowering to know you have a lot to contribute to the greater understanding of critical issues, and crucially important to be reminded that you also have a lot to learn from others.”
  • “We can all learn and open our minds to others in this type of format. The guided breakout sessions gave me reason to look at my own views and rethink some of my positions. In addition, the Deliberation Guide given out is most helpful in discerning my thoughts on this topic and learning of other resources. I encourage anyone who has even made up their mind about gun laws to attend the next forum. What we do together makes a difference.”
  • “I wanted to attend the DCI forum on guns to hear from experts and fellow citizens on how we can all work together to address gun safety in America. It was refreshing to be in a room full of people who all seemed to be there for the right reasons and were all open-minded to hearing different perspectives. The work being done by the DCI is important and I believe all citizens should challenge themselves to participate in these types of programs.”
  • “Far exceeded my expectations to hear a wide variety of opinions in a balanced and logical way.”
  • “The range of views (rather than simply two opposite views) on the panel was fabulous.”
  • “This was fantastic – THANK YOU to everyone who worked so hard to provide a balanced, informative space. [Our facilitator] did an excellent job in facilitating our discussion. Loved connecting with all the other alums in my group. And am very appreciative of the well sourced materials that I may revisit more deeply on my own time.”

Our hope is that events like this forum contribute to greater understanding of different perspectives on the issues that divide us and create the foundation for sustained progress on them in the future.

Commons Conversation Reflection: Discussing Safe Spaces with Dr. Boyer

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By Atyantika Mookherjee ’27

On Friday, March 22nd, a group of Davidson students gathered over lunch to discuss the concept and role of safe spaces with Dr Patricio Boyer. Dr Boyer, Director of the Humanities Program, had interesting ideas about the differing roles of safe spaces. The conversation began with an overview of the DCI’s Conversation Agreements and a round of introductions, allowing students from different majors and class years to share their reasons for interest in the topic and fostering a sense of inclusivity.

Dr Boyer then provided an overview of the topic, presenting his thoughts around how the question of a college being a safe space is a compelling one as it not only is a meeting ground for students, but also a place for faculty and staff to express their thoughts. He then opened the conversation up to the students. What followed was an engaging conversation that touched on trigger warnings, the type of media present in the classroom, and the difference between safe and brave places on college campuses.

It was incredibly interesting seeing students grapple with the question of if the classroom ought to be a safe space and the tug between content that requires a trigger warning and a comprehensive education. While – like most conversations at the DCI – there may be no easy answer, the experience was a rewarding one for all involved as we each walked away with new perspectives, more questions, and the skills to bring about productive conversations.