facilitation

By Kevin Garcia-Galindo, DCI Fellow

For my DCI Fellowship Project, I decided to center on the issues of diversity and inclusion that have been so pertinent on campus throughout my time at Davidson. I, however, chose to experiment more with different kinds of deliberations.

Specifically, my DCI project centered on something very different from the goals of the DCI’s usual style of deliberation. My project could be categorized as an enclave deliberation, meaning that there was a clear selection bias that I took into account when I chose my participants. The goal of my deliberation was not to try to change anyone’s opinions but rather to encourage the dispersion of ideas within a group who all share one common characteristic.

Research often gives the practice of enclave deliberation a bad name. Some question how if it is so easy to wall oneself off from views from the other side (through who you follow on social media or which cable news stations you watch, for example), then why should we focus any more on bringing similarly minded people together? Moreover, political scientists often argue that enclave deliberation can lead to increased group polarization.

Enclave deliberation, however, is the most common type of deliberation we encounter in daily life, and it is a fundamental part of a healthy working democracy. This is because most of us learn about our own stances and positions from people who are most like us. Furthermore, because enclave deliberations tend to be less formal and structured, more people tend to be more comfortable attending them, especially with how much work a more structured deliberation can seem to require.

I believe my DCI personal project proves that enclave deliberations do not have to encourage political polarization, and even more, enclave deliberations can actually lead to a broad diffusion of diverse ideas even when most of the members share at least one major characteristic together.

For my personal project, the point of connection for all my participants was that they were all part of the Chidsey Leadership Fellows program. As a Fellow myself, I knew that If I wanted to talk about diversity and inclusion with student campus leaders, then there was no better way to do this than to talk directly with the group on campus that focuses on forming a group of diverse leaders. Moreover, I knew that because of the high level of diversity within Chidsey Leadership, they would be disproportionately more likely to have been affected by recent controversies on campus.

To give a short synopsis of these issues: Students in the past year have expressed resentment towards Davidson’s administration because they have perceived some of its decisions as disproportionately and negatively affecting low-income, first-generation, gender and racial minority students. From the current controversy around the administration preventing Dining Dollars being used to buy Plan B, and the past controversies that came and went, such as the movement to add Asian Studies as a major, the petition to change the name of Chambers, and the ruckus that was caused when students heard that our Summit coffee shop could be shut down, many students on campus believe that the administration takes issues of diversity and inclusion far too lightly. As a first gen person of color (POC) student myself, I was privy to a lot of the conversations that happened directly around these issues, and I can confirm they reinforced many of the feelings about how POC were being valued on campus.

The issue, however, was not that there was not enough communication between administration and students, but rather what I personally saw was that there was not enough communication among affinity groups and students for them to be able to reach common ground on these issues. Student government and the quotidian student petition of the day signaled to me that there was already enough student-administration communication; whether it was effective was not something I could really determine or had the energy to do.

As a result, I instead focused on creating an enclave deliberation where I could bring together this already close-knit group to discuss an issue that they were all being affected by. A difference I would point out between what I did here as opposed to the kind of enclave deliberation that most of the research points to is that my participants only related to each other in one specific way as opposed to sharing a multitude of characteristics. As a result, I am more inclined to call this a hybrid style of deliberation that had characteristics of both a more structured and broad-based style of deliberation and an enclave deliberation.

The goal of my deliberation was not necessarily to change anyone’s mind but to encourage people from different groups to share their own perspectives on an issue that affects all of them. The defining difference between what I did here and a more traditional deliberation is that I did not focus on discussing whether diversity and inclusion is an issue to begin with, but rather I focused on bringing together people who had already reached that conclusion and instead focused on encouraging them to work together to find solutions.

Spending so much time on just discussing the validity of an issue and never getting to proposing a solution is something that you see ad nauseam in many kinds of debates. For example, we often see this dynamic in debates around abortion where the pro-life and pro-choice sides never change their opinions but rather opt instead only to make small adjustments to their proposals. Consider how pro-life advocates who believe that abortion is immoral in all cases concede allowing abortion in cases of rape or incest, or how even pro-choice absolutists sometimes concede banning the most invasive and late-term types of abortions. Rarely is there anyone brave enough to concede more than is necessary to still come out winning.

But what happens when the most common proposals are not so concretely defined? Or when the topic is centered directly at giving those who normally do not have an outlet a chance to speak? What I think you get is an enclave deliberation where you truly get the chance to work together to find solutions and proposals.

Some may critique my thinking by saying that this kind of deliberation is not very effective at bringing the complete spectrum of ideas into discussion and that no meaningful consensus can ever be found unless you bring together people who represent the entire spectrum of possible views. To this I respond by saying that the task of my deliberation was not to start and end the debate around diversity and inclusion, but rather it was to create an effective starting point for a future more-representative deliberation.

I am very aware that there is still a lot of dialogue that needs to happen, but I take my project to represent a starting point for students to be better equipped to engage with the administration robustly, thoughtfully, and productively by first deliberating among themselves. Without this type of enclave conversation, I think it would be hard to be able to move very far in an actual deliberation between the administration and students.

What I think my deliberation proves is that there can exist many ways to maneuver through a difficult issue using structured deliberation as a tool. The approach we took represents an important way to do so that brings together different stakeholders who may not otherwise have the opportunity to reflect on their shared objectives.

By Henry Griffith, DCI Fellow

As part of my work as a DCI Fellow this year, I had to complete a personal deliberation project of my own design and implementation. As a scholar-athlete, I have engaged in several conversations around marijuana policy during my time at Davidson. With the broader landscape around marijuana shifting so much in the United States in recent years, the discussions within Davidson have consequently responded. However, it seemed to me that there was a gap in that conversation for Davidson as a whole. To me, that gap was between the policy conversations occurring within the athletic administration and the beliefs, knowledge, and experiences of scholar-athletes at Davidson. I firmly believe that most members of the Davidson community agree about various points in the conversation around marijuana, and yet, the topic continues to drag with it a burden of potentially unnecessary conflict. In this blog post, I wish to discuss my small implementation of a deliberation between students and administration around a specific Davidson policy to demonstrate how a deliberative mechanism could clarify policies and amplify agreement within the Davidson community.

My project intended to bridge the perceived gap between students and administration by creating the place to hold a constructive, structured, and facilitated conversation around marijuana policy at Davidson. The deliberation was created with the broad intent to answer, “How lenient or strict should Davidson’s marijuana policy be to best foster the growth of scholar-athletes?” To create the space for this conversation, I invited a few administrators from the athletics department, several scholar-athletes, and an administrator from the Dean of Students (their office is involved with the marijuana policy for all of Davidson). While scheduling and organizing this deliberation with many people was quite the challenge, it was quickly clear to me that those who entered the conversation wanted to better understand the current policy and its possible path forward.

Following along with the deliberation guide created for the conversation, the participants quickly engaged with one another and managed to settle into the deliberative space. Perhaps most importantly, it became clear that they understood that getting on the same page about the current policy was a sufficiently successful outcome; they did not need to come away having proposed radical changes to the policies. Rather, it was beneficial simply to create a space for all parties involved to better understand one another’s perspectives. They engaged with one another directly, including by asking clarifying questions and asking to hear more about individuals’ experiences. Deliberation guides can be useful in providing a formal structure for conversations; however, I think that conversations like this which were intentionally trying to bridge a gap are best served by allowing for flexibility in the conversation’s path.

Before the deliberation, I was quite worried about a student vs. administration dynamic. However, deliberation continues to surprise me with its ability to cool off such dynamics and produce unexpected agreements by the end of the conversation. I believe a large source of this surprising agreement comes from engaging with the nuanced areas of the policies. By focusing on specific components of and reasons for Davidson’s policy, students and administrators were able to agree where I believe they didn’t expect it. In the final section of each deliberation, there is a period reserved for reflections on the conversations in which each participant shares some reflection. And in these reflections, several participants noted that they were pleasantly surprised by the group’s areas of agreement.

It is due to the success of this small implementation of a deliberative policy conversation that I seek to argue for a broader use of deliberations in Davidson’s policy decisions. This year, students have seen policy changes such as the “Wellness Wendy” and non-food dining dollars change that created some backlash among the student body. I believe that deliberation could present an intermediary in these kinds of decisions for the future of Davidson. From my perspective, much of students’ frustration was that the policy was changed without consulting students. These situations are those which I believe deliberation could represent a powerful tool for aiding.

It might be somewhat foolish of me to assume that deliberation could help or change all policy choices that presently occur within Davidson. However, I do believe that creating a deliberative mechanism before a policy conversation even begins could be instrumental in helping get students, faculty, and administrators on the same page. These deliberations would not have to be lengthy. But I believe they would present a beneficial environment for members of the Davidson community to engage with one another as equals, per deliberation’s egalitarian agreement.

One of the factors for success in the deliberation around marijuana policy was that it took place shortly before the administration were planning to have a formal discussion on the matter. Thus, the deliberation allowed for the administrators to preemptively test their ideas with students before taking them to the formal conversation. It is this type of mechanism that I believe could be very beneficial for Davidson, not only in hopefully continuing to improve and adapt policies, but also in simply allowing all parties to be heard. Producing equitable, fair policies is quite a challenge. However, I believe that this mini deliberation around marijuana policy could set the stage for a consistent implementation of deliberative environments in future Davidson policy discussions.

By Meggie Lasher, DCI Fellow

As a participant in DCI, I was eager to step into the role of facilitator. I had an excellent experience with my past facilitators, Dalton and Steve, and was hopeful about developing my own facilitator persona. The step from participant to facilitator quickly seemed like a leap — the careful consideration and compassion from Dalton and Steve seemed nearly impossible to achieve when I began training.

My initial hurdle as a facilitator wasn’t a surprise to me. I undoubtedly have the gift of gab. I can speak extemporaneously, chat with anyone, and really don’t mind public speaking. Frustratingly, this loquaciousness does not lend well to deliberative space. It may seem contradictory to struggle with talking too much when deliberation requires us to talk to each other. Yet, talking to fill a lull or void quickly felt disruptive during my first deliberation as a facilitator. Instead of validating and demonstrating my own intentional listening, I slipped into wandering with my words.

Looking back, since these sessions are recorded on Zoom, I was not visibly nervous per se, but I looked a little lost. I struggled to really be with the group, to lead and follow each stage of the conversation. I was married to the deliberation guide and hesitated to move from it. I owe much of my growth and ability to reflect to that first group of participants. They helped me de-center myself and talkative nature as the driving outcome for deliberation and showed me how to step back and let things flow.

As Fellows, we have access to others’ tools and opportunities to grow our skills. I especially appreciate the video series Beyond Bigots and Snowflakes. These short videos from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Dr. Ilana Redstone are accessible and informative as we wrestle with the highs and lows present in facilitating difficult conversations. They’re worth the watch! My favorite so far is “The Problem with Telling People to Stay in Their Lane.”

Additionally, we have campus members and outside speakers come to our weekly meetings. Recently, Dr. Daniel Layman from Davidson’s Philosophy Department visited. We talked about how sometimes people present something that sounds awfully close to an argument but when you invite them to distill it in a few words, they wiggle out of it. We also discussed how you don’t have to be “fancy” to participate in discourse, which resonated with me and my value of deliberative spaces aiming for accessibility and approachability.

We also heard from Dr. Leila Brammer, who visited from the University of Chicago during Davidson’s Freedom of Expression Week. I attended her evening lecture, “Revitalizing Public Discourse on Campus and Beyond.” I found her description of how public discourse often tugs people into extremes to be particularly helpful with our hot topics this semester like gun control and abortion policy. She spoke of how even middle school students slip into the polarity; I used her technique of introducing an outside, third perspective to offer a perspective in the middle of the two radical poles in a recent deliberation. I’m looking forward to reading her book chapter about integrating deliberative pedagogy into first-year curricula.^[1]

Now in my second semester, I have two groups meeting for two hours. Last-semester me would have croaked! I work with a virtual group that is a mix of alumni and students as well as a special in-person group at a local 55+ active living community. With the tools and confidence I’ve gained, I am a radically different facilitator. I ask deeper questions, connect with participants, and dare I say, have fun? Now I know when I make space and hold it for others, their voices come pouring in.

^[1] Leila R. Brammer. “Deliberative Pedagogy as a Central Tenet: First-Year Students Develop a Course and a Community.” In Deliberative Pedagogy, 51–. Michigan State University Press, 2017.