D Teams

LJ Phillips ’25 (DCI Fellow)

Job 12:12 of the Bible, says, “Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in the length of days.” This is certainly a truth that all of us can relate to. You can learn a lot from the people who have come before. You can also learn from the generation behind you as well. Age brings wisdom while youth brings new and refreshed ideas. These conclusions are why I think age diversity is crucial in having productive deliberations.

In my D Team last semester, I noticed the deliberators’ openness, knowledge, and respect for their peers. Although all those aspects of the D-Team were important, the one that stood out to me was the age diversity and distribution. The different age groups really brought new perspectives and knowledge about the topics that many of the participants were unaware of beforehand.

Many alumni from Davidson ranging from 30 to almost 80 years old made the deliberations flow and more engaging. They made the students feel comfortable but also intrigued in learning aspects they would have never known if someone who had more experience with the topic had not told them. Also, it was beneficial for the students’ forebearers to hear about how the next and current generations feel about certain issues.

People of an older age in deliberations bring nuance and history to topics that students and other younger members would not know the details about because they didn’t live during that time period. Instead of having an outside view of the situation due to age, they have a direct experience with whatever the discussion is about. This sentiment can be shared with younger people as well in the discussion. They provide new insights into topics that they are more accustomed to than their older peers (such as social media).

I think a good example of the influence age diversity has on our interactions would be the conversations we have with family members and colleagues. Even though you might not have the same love and respect for someone in your D Team as you have for your grandmother, the insight you can gain from them is extremely valuable.

We take for granted how important it is for different generations to interact, especially in a time like today when the generations are more disconnected from one another than ever before. Deliberations that are more diverse in nature have a positive impact on the discussion. Age plays a pivotal role when it comes to diversity in spaces like D Teams. It is more useful to acknowledge the differences in experiences and wisdom to come to a solution to any contentious issue.

I encourage elders to speak about their experiences and teach the youth, and I encourage young students and adults to help their predecessors with new ideas foreign to them and share their experiences as well. No matter if you are 40, 21, or 68, you have significance and can bring valuable contributions to any deliberations, so do not be afraid to convey your thoughts – we will all appreciate them.

By Brody Bassett ’25 (DCI Fellow)

Going into my second semester of being a DCI facilitator, I was very excited to host my first D-Team of the new year! Before my D-Team, I made sure to look over my suggested self-improvements from last semester. Amidst the comments of stop fidgeting, sit up straight, and smile was buried the comment: “take notes.” While the comment seemed simple at first, I realized it held a lot of value. Notetaking allows the facilitator to record important ideas to follow up on and allows the facilitator to fade into the background.

In my previous DCI facilitator events, I always took notes but did not give them much attention. Notetaking was simply an extension of my memory, and from my notes, I was able to pull relevant questions and pose them to my group. The exercise of taking notes was helpful to me because while my brain was busy making sure DCI agreements were followed and monitoring everyone’s speaking time, I could simply write down important points brought up to the deliberation. This allowed me to put my main focus on the fluidity of the deliberation. When the time came, I had an abundance of questions to choose from to continue the conversation.

Simply, notetaking acts as an extension of the brain, so the facilitator can solely focus on maintaining the agreements and learning environment of the deliberation.

Secondly, the practice of taking notes allows the facilitator to fade into the background of the deliberation. By notetaking, the facilitator starts to resemble a scribe. A member of the group talks about their thoughts on a specific topic, and the facilitator diligently records the central point for comparison with other people’s ideas. It is important to state, however, that the facilitator must be careful not to become a scribe and remember that they are in charge of maintaining a good environment for deliberation. So the difference between a scribe and a facilitator is that the facilitator interjects comments in the deliberation to keep it on track and oriented towards the expected outcomes.

Keeping that thought in mind, the act of notetaking helps put the facilitator more at the same level as the members of the deliberation. The deliberators respect the facilitator’s advice and direction of the conversation while the facilitator respectfully records the main comments from the discussion to provide important points to return to later in the deliberation. This reinforces the idea that the facilitator is present not to simply direct and lead the conversation but to facilitate listening and sharing among the group, and will fade into and out of the conversation as needed to do so. Notetaking helps the facilitator remind the group of questions and ideas to consider.

At the time of writing this blog, my D Team has just finished the meeting, and I used my notetaking tactic. By notetaking, I was able to focus on maintaining a productive deliberation environment, and I found myself able to produce relevant questions for my group members to continue the conversation. Overall, I think notetaking is a valuable tool for a facilitator to use during their deliberations.

Mae Corley ’25 (DCI Fellow)

As a DCI Fellow this year, I have learned the power of a great facilitator to drive a conversation, play devil’s advocate, and dig deeper within a discussion. Yet, I’ve become much more aware of the informal deliberations that occur right in front of me every day. In those scenarios, an official facilitator is rarely present and conversation management must be controlled and determined by the parties engaged in the deliberation. These conversations may be complex or simple or anywhere in between but deliberation norms are still as important as ever. This sounds straightforward, but these conversations are much more difficult than they seem.

I can vividly remember the most powerful conversations I’ve had with friends, family, and teachers. All of them include a surrender of ego and acceptance that learning is done by listening. These powerful conversations require honesty on a level that can be intimidating. Deliberations like this take hard work and effort. It is difficult to be this vulnerable with people you do not feel comfortable with, and I find myself relying on several friends who have a natural ability to make me feel heard and valued. I strive to be a person who can invite these types of conversations with people I do not know extremely well. DCI has taught me the importance of this skill (which can be developed and practiced) to seek intentional conversations and practice thinking through my actions when engaging with people with other views.

On Davidson’s campus, I often hear students express a desire to have deliberative conversations, but I think many people are forgetting an important step. They are forgetting to first practice deliberative skills that would allow them to have successful informal deliberations every day. They are unaware of how important it is to intentionally manage conversations to keep both parties comfortable and willing to engage respectfully.

So, what should be done? Where is the magical solution which will create incredible deliberative conversations everywhere we turn at Davidson? Well, I think it’s simpler than you would think. I’ve often heard the idea of small acts of kindness. The purpose is to encourage each individual to complete one small act of kindness each day and, compounded together with the actions of the larger community, a huge impact will be felt. I propose the same method for deliberative skills and conversations. If we can challenge our Davidson community to practice deliberation and community engagement similarly then imagine the impact.

Each person can challenge themselves to seek out one intentional, deliberative conversation each day. It could be short – ten minutes (or perhaps longer!) – but engagement with deliberative skills each day makes these conversations and skills easier over time. Ten minutes of practicing intellectual humility, active listening, and thoughtful discussion with another person can encourage the entire campus to pick up these important skills.

Perhaps I’ve oversimplified, but I think the point remains. Informal deliberation is extremely important, but it’s a difficult pursuit. It takes more effort and intentionality than one would expect. Davidson stands to benefit greatly from a community that chooses to engage with each other in deliberative ways and seeks to learn from others. It isn’t easy, but it is extremely important for growth and learning in our Davidson community. It can start with just a few minutes every day!

By Kayleigh Davies ’25 (DCI Fellow)

Diversity is the practice of including and involving people from a range of different backgrounds, be they social, ethnic, socioeconomic, or cultural. It drives creativity and enhances innovation; this is not a foreign concept to us. Allowing people to learn directly from each other ensures that a functioning community is established, wherein differences can coexist and standard stereotypes are dispelled.

Davidson College as an institution is not exempt from this line of thinking. Its commitment to diversity is explained through a series of statements on its website: “Davidson College believes fundamentally in the dignity and worth of every human being, and we are committed to assisting students in developing humane instincts and disciplined and creative minds for lives of leadership and service. Cultivating a broadly diverse community is crucial to our educational mission and purpose.”

Davidson College is home to a student body representing 50 states and 46 countries. Of the 1,973 students enrolled, 28% are domestic students of color, and 8% are international students. However, it is not enough to simply create a space where a diverse population exists, especially one as large as 2,000 people. In order for diversity to have the desired effect, we must ensure that measures are being taken to encourage the exposure of differences.

Similarity/attraction theory states that humans are more attracted to those they view as similar to themselves, rather than dissimilar. Such an attraction is not an inherently negative trait, but there are indisputable drawbacks to this natural inclination. There is a limit to what one can learn from someone similar to themselves.

It is undeniable that Davidson College’s community sometimes suffers from the downsides of our tendency to be attracted to those similar to ourselves. So while the college is brimming with educated students eager to deliberate on a variety of contentious issues, the productivity of the conversations are hindered by the similarities shared between the groups students find themselves in.

DCI makes a space on this campus where the diversity present is made visible. I was excited to be presented with the opportunity of becoming a DCI Fellow, but surprised when I recognized only a handful of names on the list of other student fellows. I had lived in the same building as some of these students, studied in the same places, made conversation with their roommates, all with their existence unbeknownst to me. As a group of students, we all applied to become DCI Fellows because we were attracted to the idea of deliberation, but every one of us has a different understanding of that term.

Something I have learned during the progression of our D Teams is that differences are what drive our conversations. No two people can hold a discussion if the premise is eternal agreement; the hesitation to disagree feeds awkward silences like no other. Breaking down our viewpoints to the specific components that create them often reveals even minor differences that fuel discourse, and thus amplify the productivity of our conversations.