One of the most innovative and important efforts of the DCI in recent years has been its collaborations with other institutions in North Carolina on promoting civil discourse in higher education. In 2024, for example, we collaborated with UNC Charlotte, UNC Chapel Hill, Elon University, and NC Campus Engagement to co-host the first-ever NC Campus Discourse Leaders Conference that brought together staff and faculty from over 25 institutions across North Carolina. This year, we are co-organizing with Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill another cross-institution initiative, the American Values Deliberative Forum Series, in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
This work has been noticed at the national level, as DCI’s Faculty Director Graham Bullock was recently invited to join a panel of our North Carolina collaborators at a national conference hosted by the University of California, San Diego, the National Conflict Resolution Center, and the Applied Research Center for Civility. The other panelists included Kevin Marinelli from UNC Chapel Hill, Leslie Garvin from NC Campus Engagement, and Donavan Bethea from from North Carolina A&T State University, and we had a lively discussion about our efforts to connect across our institutions. We utilized a range of basketball metaphors to highlight both the opportunities and challenges of doing this work, and had some good laughs along the way.
The other sessions of the conference were equally important and engaging; they included panelists from some of the organizations doing this work at the national level, including the Constructive Dialogue Institute, BridgeUSA, Narrative 4, and the Sustained Dialogue Institute, and on other campuses, including the University of Chicago, Colorado State University, Seattle University, UCLA, and Seattle University. The conference began with welcoming and keynote remarks from Elizabeth Simmons, UC San Diego’s Executive Vice Chancellor, Steven Dinkin, President of the National Conflict Resolution Center, and Jennifer Mnookin, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin. See the short video below with highlights from the conference.
The conference introduced a major new report by researchers Karina Shklyan and Kelly Nielsen from UC San Diego’s Center for Research and Evaluation that examined 45 civil discourse programs at higher education institutions across the country. The DCI is one of four programs spotlighted in the report and is recognized for its “all-of-campus approach” that “not only broadens participation but also deepens institutional commitment to fostering a campus-wide culture of dialogue civic engagement.” Dr. Shklyan also mentioned the DCI in her remarks at the conference when a poll of the audience revealed a strong preference for “all of the above” approaches to campus civil discourse that includes a cohort model, course-based model, embedded courses, campus-wide efforts, and faculty fellows. She noted the DCI as an exemplar of this “wrap-around” model and encouraged participants to reach out to us to learn more. See her full remarks and the proceeding panel discussion in the video below.
The conference concluded with breakout sessions for participants to learn about specific approaches to civil discourse in higher education. Overall, the event provided lots of opportunities for the nearly 200 participants to share insights from their work with one another, as they explored how to best create opportunities for robust and respectful deliberation on college campuses across the country.
