Fellow Posts

By Nikita Aleksii ’28 (DCI Fellow)

As a DCI fellow and international student, I facilitated my first deliberation on a contentious and timely issue – how to manage the already overwhelmed U.S. immigration system. Before my D Team meeting, I prepared robustly to facilitate an overarching and respectful deliberative discourse on immigration by reading different background information, discussing the issue with my DCI peers, and, most importantly, reflecting on immigration myself. Yet despite all that preparation, nothing prepared me for how complex genuine neutrality would be.

I had always assumed that being unbiased simply meant avoiding taking sides out loud. But I quickly learned that neutrality is not silence – it is an intentional practice that requires constant self-awareness, restraint, and a willingness to step back even when you want to lean forward. Oftentimes, I had to suppress the emotional aspect that usually guides me to encourage robust deliberation and ensure that every voice has space to be heard. As a facilitator, I had to learn to manage not only what I said, but also how I carried myself – my body language, my reactions, and even my pauses.

During preparation, I also realized that immigration, as a topic, holds layers of personal meaning for me. As someone who has navigated visas, borders, and cultural transitions, I naturally brought my own lived experiences into the room. Neutrality did not mean erasing those experiences but rather making sure they didn’t unconsciously shape the conversation. I had to ask myself: Am I creating space for every perspective, even the ones that might challenge my own story? That question followed me throughout the entire deliberation.

When the session began, the difficulty of neutrality became even more real. Facilitation is not passive– it is active work. Every time someone spoke, I had to listen for balance: Who has not spoken yet? Is one perspective dominating? The challenge was to guide the conversation without guiding the content.

One of the moments that taught me the most was when participants expressed strong emotional reactions. In those moments, my instinct was to respond with sympathy or agreement. But as a facilitator, my role was different. My job was not to match their sentiment but to foster a culture of free expression and diverse views. Neutrality, I realized, is not the absence of care. It is care expressed through fairness.

By the end of the deliberation, I realized that neutrality is a skill I am still learning. It requires confidence but not dominance, empathy without alignment, and structure without direction. It is an art precisely because it is practiced, refined, and never fully mastered. And in a world where people often rush to take positions, defend views, and prove points, choosing to stay neutral may be one of the most challenging – and most valuable – skills we can develop. This experience reaffirmed for me why deliberation matters. It reminds us that conversations do not need winners and losers; they need space, patience, and a willingness to understand rather than convince. And that begins with the art of neutrality.

By Ceyda Yesllik ’28 (DCI Fellow)

When you get into an argument with someone, do you want to win or do you want to solve the problem?

That summarizes the main difference between two common forms of political discussion: deliberation and debate. I think most of us are used to hearing the latter one with the famous presidential debates aimed at winning over undecided voters. Though we are less exposed to deliberation, it just might be a more effective way to engage with our disagreements.

The purpose of debate is to win; it is a competitive form of discourse. Debates have clearly defined sides, and each side tries to persuade an audience that their ideas are the correct ones. In a debate, you try to defeat the other side, whereas in deliberation, you try to find common ground with other people who aren’t as distinctly on the other side. The purpose of deliberation is to understand different perspectives, discuss options, and find the best course of action for the group; it is a collaborative form of discourse. Success in deliberation is measured by how good the outcome is rather than who is correct.

The execution of a debate mainly involves defending your position while attacking the other side. Debate promotes strategic thinking; it teaches its practitioners to highlight the facts that support their side and ignore or disprove the facts that don’t support their ideas. Many famous debaters are very good manipulators of their audience’s emotions. They know when to rile people up and when to play with their heartstrings. Emotions are also a big part of deliberation, but they are handled in a different way. They are taken into consideration when trying to come up with a final solution, rather than used as a tool of persuasion. The execution of deliberation encourages listening and mutual respect. Deliberation works by its practitioners being open-minded and willing to revise their views.

The outcome of a debate features a clear winner and a set of ideas that were supported the best. Due to the nature of competition, the winning set of ideas might not be the best solution out there. In a debate, a compromise is a sign of weakness; you are not supposed to let go of your ideas. A debate is not the grounds to generate new ideas, unlike a deliberation, where almost everybody is expected to build upon their preexisting conceptions to accept a solution that is inclusive of the whole group. The outcome of a deliberation is ideally a new idea or a system that is built on empathy and compromises. Even if a mutual solution isn’t reached, participants come out with a better understanding of each other’s situations, feelings, and contexts.

Debate and deliberation are both valid forms of democratic discourse, but they serve very different purposes. Debate seeks to win, while deliberation seeks to understand and decide together. Deliberation prioritizes empathy, curiosity, and shared progress over personal victory, and is generally better at coming up with solutions that work for everyone. Replacing some debate with deliberation in public life can lead to better policies, stronger communities, and more legitimate decisions. That is not to say debate should become irrelevant, as it holds a specific value in situations where there must be a clear winner, but a leap towards deliberation might lead us to a more peaceful society.

By Savannah Dowtin ’28 (DCI Fellow)

“Would you rather be reincarnated as Trisha Paytas or Jojo Siwa?” I break the silence of the solemn lunch table as my friends look up with confused expressions, scoffing through bites of spaghetti. These types of outrageous Would You Rather questions are far from rare in our Commons table conversations. On the surface, they seem ridiculous, random, and you may start to wonder what type of person even comes up with something like that. But they all have one thing in common: they spark deliberation.

The first deliberation skill my friends employ is the ability and willingness to disagree with one another. What happens when everyone in the room says they would rather have toes for fingers when having fingers for toes seems like the obviously more advantageous option? Unlike problems that plague our world today, these questions don’t suggest a level of expertise is necessary to solve them. When discussing the former, it is important to acknowledge that everyone as citizens in the public sphere can bring value to a conversation with their unique experiences and local expertise. But while one might hesitate to contribute to a discussion on immigration if they feel ill-prepared, anyone can jump into a Would You Rather debate with equal ethos. Thus, the deliberative disposition, egalitarianism, is not only exercised but encouraged in these conversations because entertainment arises within disagreement.

What follows shortly after the initial proposition are the qualifiers: “If I’m Trisha Paytas, do I have to act like her? Am I Jojo Siwa currently, or when she was on Dance Moms?” To engage in proper deliberation, we crave complete context, even when discussing a problem that is entirely fabricated and hypothetical. Unfortunately, having complete context is a near-impossible feat. Instead, as Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse write in their book, Why We Argue, we must exercise earnestness and responsibility, meaningfully addressing as many arguments as we can with respect and validity. When we disagree with people, there is a common assumption that because we went through a logical process to arrive at our conclusion, there must be a gap in logic on the opposing side. This reflects the tendency to underestimate the power of context, framing, and information available about an issue.

Another deliberative aspect infused in this example is the flexibility and expectation that one’s opinion will change as new information is given. At first, one might argue that being the worst player on the best sports team is better than being the best player on a worst sports team, because they’re considering what’s beneficial for the team as a whole as opposed to prioritizing their personal achievements. However, someone might counter that being the best player on the worst sports team means that their contributions are meaningful to the team, and this way, they aren’t weighing the team down as the worst player. In both of these arguments, the team is valued most, but the conclusions differ based on the interpretation of the information. This illustrates how disagreements can still arise when people harbor the same core values; the steps a person takes from the data to their decision must be well understood to understand their belief. Additionally, reassessing our beliefs as we gain new information, and practicing what Aikin and Talisse describe as cognitive hygiene, is crucial to maintaining the productivity of deliberations and remaining authentic with ourselves and our communities.

Unlike a Would You Rather question, real issues rarely only have two sides. Being able to tease apart the nuance within problems helps us understand the various pinpoints of disagreement more clearly and address them with attuned focus. Oftentimes, we are forced to use our citizenship responsibility to make binary choices, like choosing to elect person A or person B, when in actuality, both of these options represent a plethora of other Would You Rather questions. However, if we can take the time to disagree with our peers and defend our opinions using emotion and experience to motivate instead of blind us when the stakes are Trisha Paytas versus Jojo Siwa, then there is hope that we can exercise these principles on issues that affect our communities, our schools, and our nation.

By Camryn Friedman ’27 (DCI Fellow)

During a lively conversation with family and friends, our loud demeanor suddenly shifted into hushed tones when the discussion transitioned to politics. Knowing that some of the people there had strong political views that are very different from our own, we were careful that they would not overhear what we had to say in order to avoid an argument.

This stood out to me because this aversion to discussing politics with those that disagree with me is paradoxical to everything I do with the DCI. I am a strong proponent of having these difficult conversations with people that have varying opinions from my own, so why is it so difficult for me to practice this with those I am close with?

The DCI brings together people from many different backgrounds and places them into groups to have these deliberations. The people in D Teams do not previously know each other – they come into the conversation as strangers. Without the pressure of maintaining a relationship with these people, it can feel easier to honestly share your opinions and not judge others for their views.

With family and friends, people often feel compelled to hold the same beliefs. We inherently want to have things in common with those we are close to, and since politics is such a personal thing that many feel passionate about, we tend to prioritize it as something we want to have in common with those around us.

In Robert B. Talisse and Scott Aikin’s book Why We Argue, they write how arguing is a display of respect and care for one another. When we have a belief that is challenged by someone we are close with, we feel compelled to argue with them because we believe we are right and do not want them to be wrong. We can even feel embarrassed or concerned about people that disagree with us because of how strongly connected we are to our own political beliefs.

Therefore, our emotions when discussing politics with those we are close with can be much more intense than when we talk with strangers. This makes deliberation easier and more effective with people who you did not previously know. I think this allows the DCI to have highly productive conversations.

The goal of deliberation is not necessarily to come to an agreement, it is to find common ground and open your mind to why people who disagree with you hold those views. In our relationships – family, friends, neighbors, etc. – we should work to approach our discussions with this same mindset. Arguing with those we care about is inherent in human nature, but we can strive to use deliberative values to have these conversations rather than acting overly defensive.

Next time the subject of politics arises when I am around people who hold different beliefs from my own, I hope to have an open-minded and productive conversation with them rather than speaking quietly or changing the subject to avoid an argument. I know that I do not need to be in agreement with everything my friends and family believe. While we feel compelled to argue because we care about them, having productive conversations rather than forming a hostile environment is necessary. We must respectfully deliberate with them to find what we have in common and understand their perspective.

By Desi Molina ’29 (DCI Fellow)

Growing up in such a divisive political environment, misinformation and polarization feel like a new normal. As a college student stepping into this landscape, being tasked with fixing a world that feels unmendable, I often find myself wondering what’s the point of debating or talking across the aisle, when no one seems to listen? The art of true deliberation, and the willingness to participate in it, feels almost lost.

In DCI, we’ve been reading Why We Argue by Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin, a book that has discussed why argument isn’t just inevitable but essential in free society. One discussion we had on this book was led by Professor Layman of the Philosophy Department. As someone who has always found philosophy to be both fascinating and frustrating – circles of endless questions and no definitive answers – I wasn’t sure what I’d make of this conversation. During the discussion I very predictably found myself moving back and forth between perspectives, firm in one belief, then agreeing with the opposite moments later.

Despite the conversation proving to be a bit dizzying for me, the end of it left me with a question that is still echoing in my head: if not argumentation or deliberation, then what else can we resort to?

This question has in part reshaped the way I think about deliberation. As exhausting and sometimes disheartening discourse can be, the alternative can be much worse. Without argument, humans lose the ability to challenge our own assumptions, build understanding with those we may differ from, or even coexist peacefully. Deliberation may not always lead to neat conclusions or universal agreement, but it keeps us human.

I think framing deliberation around this question is what our society needs right now. While there are many reasons why one may not want to deliberate with their peers, it’s important to keep in mind that if we don’t deliberate, what else is there? Deliberating through discomfort is a sign of love, as Dr. Bullock would say. It shows that you’re willing to wrestle with complexity instead of retreating into simplicity and polarization. In a time when shouting matches often replace meaningful conversations, choosing to deliberate, listen, question, and reflect is itself an act of hope. While entering this polarized world still feels daunting to me, I’ve come to understand the necessity of deliberation within it. If not deliberation, then what else must we resort to?