Fellow Posts

By Bolling Lewis ’28 (DCI Fellow)

On February 12th, I, along with six fellow DCI members, packed into a rented Jeep Wagoneer and set out on a daunting goal of bringing deliberation to Duke University. We had been invited to introduce our approach to facilitating constructive deliberations on challenging topics to a university class exploring the challenges and opportunities of pluralism in modern society. Students in the class would be hosting small group discussions at Duke following an upcoming expert roundtable on justice and the rule of law, and we were tasked with putting on an interactive class workshop on how best to organize and facilitate their deliberations.    

Since the inception of the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative in 2020, the task of including as many people as possible in the conversation has centered around engaging a small two-thousand-person liberal arts campus. Word of mouth, deliberative forums, and inclusion of dialogue in course materials have all been successful ways to hear new perspectives and experiences from the Davidson community. Yet, such effective methods can be rendered useless in a different environment. Duke, in many ways, is the exact opposite of Davidson, with an almost 18,000-person student body, an emphasis on research, and little exposure to formal deliberation. All the signs pointed  to a big question: were the successes we’ve had at Davidson transferrable to other campuses and contexts? 

Huddled in the car for our two-hour journey to Durham, we reviewed our plan for the visit. We collectively stressed the importance of emphasizing deliberative dispositions and the realistic challenges of facilitating conversations at another campus. With Professor Bullock, head of the DCI program and our faculty leader for the trip, at the wheel, we discussed the size disparity between the average Davidson and Duke classroom. We realized that we should be prepared for students who may not be as well versed in small-group conversations, given their significantly larger class sizes. With this in mind, we mapped out how we would introduce the principles and practices of deliberative dialogue in a context very different from our own. 

Upon arrival, we quickly headed towards the academic buildings and were guided through a maze of hallways to finally arrive at our lecture hall. Once again, the stark contrast between Davidson and Duke was glaring when we arrived in our room. The class seated roughly a hundred students, tightly packed together, in a room roughly three times the size of any Chambers classroom. Still, despite the differences, the Duke students seemed quite receptive to the idea of deliberation. They asked questions and engaged with the practice prompts. Furthermore, they listened attentively to the dispositions we presented in the lecture hall, and after about sixty minutes of presentations (we each presented a different dimension of effective facilitation), we split into breakout groups based on career aspirations to put the ideas into practice.

My breakout session featured mainly pre-law students. The discussion, which centered around welfare, social security, and liberty, went exceptionally well. Despite the fact that no one in the conversation had participated in a structured deliberation before, they all jumped in to provide insights and perspectives about the topics. Some students integrated law-based arguments, while others focused on personal anecdotes. To me, it appeared as if the Duke students were naturals who had simply not had the opportunity to engage in an organized deliberative dialogue. They often wrestled with difficult ideas, including social security reform and efficient government spending, acknowledging that they could not solve everything today, but that the discussion of the issue was an important step forward. There were undoubtedly awkward moments, or periods of silence that created discomfort, but by the end, the conversation felt both casual and purposeful.

When the conversation wrapped up, I joined the reception dinner and discovered that many other DCI Fellows had similar experiences. In spite of the surface-level differences, the Duke students quickly picked up deliberation. Every conversation had its ups and downs, but the core concept of sharing viewpoints in a safe space to listen and learn from others was successfully passed along. On the car ride back to Davidson, we all took turns reflecting on the afternoon at Duke; one of my main takeaways I expressed was how easily a different community picked up the unique skill of deliberation. Personally, it gave me another reason to believe in the DCI mission. In just two hours, another institution fully embraced some of the hardest skills in modern society: listening to others, expressing one’s own beliefs, and disagreeing respectfully.

By Mohamed Mostafa ’26 (DCI Fellow)

As a senior, I have found that some of the most meaningful conversations I’ve had about the future did not happen in classrooms or career workshops but with friends trying together to make sense of what comes next.

In one of those conversations, a friend told me plainly that he did not see a social responsibility tied to his career choice. For him, the goal was stability: a well-paying job to support his family. He wasn’t dismissive of social impact or contribution but rather that those considerations came second, if at all. What struck me was not the position itself, but how often I had heard it before.

Across conversations with classmates, a pattern began to be obvious. Many of us had entered college with language about making a difference, contributing to society, or pursuing meaningful careers. Yet as senior year approached, those ideas often became harder to prioritize. Conversations shifted toward job security, salaries, and the pressure to “figure it out.” The question was no longer just what we cared about, but what felt safe and financially rewarding.

In many ways, this shift is understandable. College is often framed as an investment and something we pursue to secure our futures, justify its cost, and create stability for ourselves and our families. For some students, especially those navigating financial pressures or immigration constraints, choosing a stable and predictable path is not simply a preference but a responsibility. In this light, prioritizing individual success can reflect responsibility and obligation rather than self-interest alone.

Yet, this framing feels incomplete.

At Davidson, we are reminded that education is not only about personal advancement, but about preparing students “for lives of leadership and service.” Implicit in that vision is the idea that our choices, especially those related to our careers, are not neutral. They shape not only our own lives, but also the communities and systems we become part of.

This is where the tension becomes more difficult to ignore. If college is both a private good and a public one, therefore the decisions we make are not simply about what we can achieve, but about how we choose to contribute. Yet in practice, the structures surrounding us (recruiting cycles, prestige hierarchies, and cultural expectations) often reward paths that are relatively safe, stable, and individually beneficial. In that environment, it becomes easier to measure success by outcomes we can point to, rather than impact that is harder to quantify.

Still, the conversations I’ve had suggest that this is an unresolved question. When friends speak about choosing more secure paths, they often do so with a quiet awareness of what may be left out of the conversation. And when others pursue work more explicitly oriented toward service or impact, they usually do so with an understanding of the risks involved. Neither path is arbitrary. Both are shaped by values, constraints, and competing responsibilities.

What feels missing is not clarity, but space to deliberate about these tradeoffs more openly. Too often, decisions are made under pressure, guided by urgency rather than reflection. We compare outcomes without fully understanding the motivations behind them. We assume that certain paths are more responsible than others, without asking responsible to whom?

Deliberation offers a way to approach these questions differently. It does not resolve the tension between personal success and social impact, but it allows us to examine it more honestly and understand where each position is coming from. It asks us to consider not only what we want, but what we owe to our families, to our communities, and to the society we are part of.

One concrete example of creating such space at Davidson was the Values and Vocations Forum, a dialogue program Coralyn Cairns ’29 and I helped organize in partnership with the Matthews Center for Career Development, Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion. This 90-minute interactive session brought together students, staff, and faculty to reflect on how personal values like impact, integrity, and non-compromise areas intersect with career choices amid real-world tradeoffs, such as organizational missions, business practices, and ethical complexities. Through structured activities including individual reflections, pair-shares, and small-group case studies on scenarios like working for education tech firms or defense companies with mixed impacts, participants engaged in honest, non-prescriptive deliberation that revealed shared tensions between stability, personal beliefs, and societal contribution. This event fostered the exploration of “for me or for us” that has felt missing in other similar conversations.

As I prepare to leave Davidson College, I find myself thinking less about finding The Answer and more about asking better questions. What does it mean to live a life of service in practical terms? How do we balance stability with contribution? And perhaps most importantly, what are we willing to prioritize when those goals come into conflict?

While I have come to better understand how attractive stability and individual success are, I am also left with the sense that an education like this asks something more of us. Not necessarily that we reject personal ambition, but that we position it within a broader sense of responsibility. That we remain attentive to the impact of our choices, even when they are difficult to measure or pursue.

If college has prepared us for anything, it may not be certainty about what comes next, but a deeper awareness of the stakes involved in our decisions. In that sense, the question is not simply whether college is for ourselves or for something larger. It is whether we are willing to carry both and to act with intention when they pull us in different directions.

By Coralyn Cairns ’29 (DCI Fellow)

As both a DCI fellow and a “Humester” (the name for students in the Humanities program at Davidson), I have found a lot of overlap between the two settings in terms of deliberation. The Humanities program at Davidson was established in 1962, and while it has evolved over the years since, it nonetheless represents the core values of a liberal arts education—critical, interdisciplinary thought with an emphasis on humane instincts. Although the DCI has had a much shorter tenure at Davidson, it has gained remarkable traction in the larger Davidson community and will now go on to spread deliberative initiatives to 100 colleges and universities over the next four years. I attribute this massive success to the liberal arts environment at Davidson and the interdisciplinary support deliberation receives here. The DCI is not just about changing how we engage in civic conversation. Similarly, the Humanities program is not just about exposure to Humanities fields. Rather, they both center around building dialogues and a mindfulness of how we interact with the world around us.

 Before beginning the Humanities program at Davidson (also referred to as Humes if you’re cool), students embark on a pre-orientation trip called Sapere Aude. Sapere Aude is Latin for “dare to know.” You may read this and think the name is a bit cheesy or nerdy, but if I have learned anything in the DCI and Humes, it is that knowing takes bravery. After all,knowing implies a level of thought a bit deeper than simply hearing and believing. Last semester, DCI fellows learned about something called “cognitive hygiene.” This term denotes the action of deliberating and listening to opinions that you disagree with in order to better understand why you support your opinion. Deliberation, in this sense, is like a stone that whets your blade of beliefs. If you know something, it is because you have weighed other possibilities and still come to the conclusion that this something is true. Therefore, knowing requires the strength and bravery to really listen to the opposition. It is not for the light-hearted, yet, I promise, everyone can do it.

The DCI and Humes are not only conceptually grounded in the same principles, but they also are structurally very similar. The DCI held four forums and four rounds of D-teams, or deliberative teams, this year. Participants attend the forums led by expert panelists and then follow-up these forums with their own discussion in D-teams, facilitated by fellows. Similarly, Humes holds two types of classes: plenary and section. During plenary, all students listen to faculty lectures on various topics with some dialogue between students and faculty, but it is mainly led by professors. Section, then, is a smaller group of students with only one faculty member facilitating. This more intimate gathering allows for students to drive dialogue. These parallel structures both foster cognitive hygiene in that participants are exposed to a variety of new ideas, and then they are asked to develop their own opinions in a safe space.

Being a DCI fellow and Humester this year has taught me that learning is not simply about absorbing information; learning is the art of discernment, of teaching yourself how to exist in and contribute to a world that is full of contradictions. Although not discussed in this blog, there are many differences between the programs, yet, at the heart of both is the liberal arts call for thoughtful students who will go on to be deliberative leaders in their communities.

By Ezra Minard ’28 (DCI Fellow)

Denunciation and persuasion are two common tools in the rhetorician’s repertoire. Both seek to affect change. Both recognize the inherent self-interestedness of any interlocutor. However, they are far from equal. Denunciation is easy, instinctive, and emotionally satisfying. Persuasion, by contrast, is difficult, uncomfortable, demanding, and frustratingly the far less common of the two. It is the path less traveled, one which requires patience, humility, and tact. Persuasion is preferable to denunciation because it engages others without hardening opposition or undermining dialogue through condemnation.

Denunciation operates by attacking motive and appealing to guilt and shame. It signals moral superiority and implies that the other’s beliefs place them beneath serious engagement. It is more comfortable to regard oneself as morally superior to an opponent than to consider the possibility of being wrong, which is exactly the disposition which civil discourse requires. Predictably, denunciation invites reciprocal denunciation. Rather than expanding dialogue, it constricts it by hardening opposition and dividing people among in-groups and out-groups. Do denouncers reasonably expect those they criticize to join them condemning themselves? More often, the denounced feel attacked and become less willing to listen as a result. While denunciation may project a belief in one’s own moral superiority, it undermines fruitful deliberation.

Contemporary debates about the platforming issue illustrate this tension. Some defend exclusion (and denunciation by extension) as a means to prevent the popularization of harmful ideas. They might view exclusion as an instrument of the court of public opinion, and I agree that there are circumstances in which conversation refusal or avoidance is not only justified, but perhaps necessary. Similarly, no one has a moral obligation to engage with anyone in any conversation and the freedom of association is an overlooked but essential right under the First Amendment. But consider the maxim: “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” Do denunciation and exclusion inadvertently popularize certain views by making them appear edgy or off-limits? If so, deplatforming could be a tragic mistake. And where do those “off-limits” conversations move ?

Conversations rarely disappear when suppressed. Instead, they often relocate into more ideologically homogenous spaces. Such insulation intensifies partisanship and deters deliberative dialogue, especially between those who are most diametrically opposed and subsequently, most in need of deliberation. If a democracy relies on productive dialogue between disagreeing parties, then ideological sectionalism compromises it.

I do not mean to suggest that there is neither a time nor a place for denunciation or for choosing not to platform someone. Conversation is only one tool among many for affecting political change. Protest is another. Our current political moment, however, feels oversaturated with denunciation and greatly in need of dialogue. The architecture of the internet feeds on rage, fear, panic, and character assassination, as they generate more online traffic than empathy, humility, and moderation. Dialogue is simply less cinematic. It does not trend as denunciation does.

Additionally, online spaces provide anonymity that weakens accountability. The social costs of harsh rhetoric decline in the absence of face-to-face settings. While online privacy is essential, its utilization in the dialogue sphere encourages caricatures, condemnation, and condescension as one is less prone to regard their interlocutor’s humanity on X (Twitter), for example.

A more effective alternative to denunciation is persuasion, which logically appeals to one’s interlocutor’s self-interest. Rather than trying to compel belief through shame, persuasion invites the interlocutor to agree, if she finds it aligned with her self-interest. Treating an interlocutor as a moral equal, even despite disagreement, does not necessarily concede moral complicity but instead recognizes shared humanity and seeks positive transformation.