The Deliberative Citizenship Initiative is a cross-campus, interdisciplinary effort that requires extensive communication, effective coordination, and respectful collaboration across multiple offices, departments, and organizations – both within Davidson College and with external partners. In recognition of this need for collaboration, the DCI involves a diverse team of faculty, staff, students, and community members that brings together the necessary skills, knowledge, experience, and connections to successfully implement the initiative. This team not only ensures that the DCI’s goals are accomplished but that it effectively connects with and complements other ongoing initiatives that have related objectives.
Faculty Director
The DCI Faculty Director, Professor Graham Bullock, is responsible for the development, implementation, and assessment of the initiative’s programs and components. As an Associate Professor of Political Science, Dr. Bullock both teaches courses and conducts research on American politics, polarization, partisanship, citizenship, and public policy. He also has experience managing programs for a non-profit organization, co-founding a social venture startup, and directing the Sustainability Information Lab and the Davidson in China Program. Combined with experience integrating deliberation into his classes, this background prepares him well for this role.
Program Coordinator
The DCI Program Coordinator is Ruby Aaver, and she is responsible for coordinating all of the operations of the DCI. This includes managing the logistics of the DCI’s Forums, D Teams, Fellows Program, Training Program, and more. Her responsibilities also include maintaining and updating the initiative’s website and social media presence, managing the data collected by the DCI about its programs, and managing and tracking the DCI’s expenses and budget. To tackle these tasks, Ruby brings extensive organizational skills and experience to the DCI from her work with tech companies HubSpot and HiveDigital.
Convening Council
The DCI Co-Conveners provide regular advice on and assist with the coordination and implementation of the overall initiative and with individual programs and components, particularly as they relate to their expertise and interests. Each co-convener is also responsible for monitoring and ensuring that the Initiative is making progress on accomplishing one of its five main goals. In 2024-25, the DCI’s Co-Conveners are:
- Christina Eggenberger, Director of Civic Engagement and Bonner Scholars. Equipped with a PhD in Philanthopic Studies and Masters in College Counseling and Student Affairs Practice in Higher Education, Dr. Eggenberger is deeply committed to helping students navigate their way towards meaningful lives of leadership and service. Much of her work focuses on both creating a sense of community within the Bonner Scholars Program and coordinating work with communities through the College’s Center for Civic Engagement. She is thus well-equipped to help the DCI accomplishes Goal #3: Bulding Meaningful Community.
- Dan Layman, Associate Professor of Philosophy. As a scholar-teacher deeply interested in the intersection of ethics, good argument, and public life, Professor Layman is well-suited to serve as a Co-Convener of the DCI, having worked extensively on deliberation in both his teaching and research. In Fall 2020, he delivered a public lecture on “robust deliberative democracy” that built on a paper he published in Critical Review. Dr. Layman is particularly focused on ensuring that the DCI accomplishes Goal #1: Teaching Deliberative Skills. He also plays a leading role in the initiative’s Deliberation Across the Curriculum Program, and has served as a facilitator of the DCI’s Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative.
- Jay Malick: Jay is a retired executive from Bank of America Merrill, specializing in wealth and asset management. Holding a B.S. from the University of Delaware and an MBA from New York University, Jay is an active and longstanding member of the Lake Norman and Charlotte community. He has served on the Board of the Lowe’s YMCA and co-founded the Charlotte Business School Alliance, and is dedicated to advancing the mission of the DCI and expanding its outreach and impact. Jay is particularly committed to helping the DCI welcome more people from Davidson, Charlotte, and other nearby communities through its Deliberation in the Community Program and achieve its Goal #3: Building Meaningful Community.
- Casey Scheiner ’28 is a sophomore from the San Francisco Bay Area looking to study political science and data science. Aside from DCI, on campus you can probably find him enjoying time with Moot Court, the College Crisis Initiative, Reformed University Fellowship, or a number of recreational sports. Casey is thrilled to be a part of DCI because he believes the health of our democracy is dependent on citizens who are willing to thoughtfully, respectfully, and bravely discuss the biggest issues in our society. A 2024-25 Fellow and 2025 DCI Summer Research Fellow, Casey has spearheaded the writing of several DCI Deliberation Guides, and as a Co-Convener he will be contributing to multiple aspects of the initiative.
- Jane McNeill ’28 is a sophomore at Davidson from Raleigh, North Carolina. She is interested in studying Physics and enjoys running, reading, and trying new things! She joined the DCI because of her experience as a trained student facilitator in a similar program at my high school. The program taught her the value of recognizing shared commonalities and seeing the humanity in people with different beliefs. I appreciate the space deliberation holds for challenging conversations and discourse that may otherwise not occur. Deliberation encourages participants to examine their own beliefs and gather a deeper understanding of complex issues. With her experience with deliberation at both the high school and collegiate levels, Jane will bring a lot to the DCI’s efforts to reach out to both campus and community partners.
- Logan Jain ’26 is a senior at Davidson from San Francisco intending to major in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE). In addition to the DCI, his other campus involvements include Club Baseball, the Davidson Investment and Finance Association, and ‘Cats Stats. Logan joined the DCI to be part of a community that embraces dialogue around contentious political and moral issues. After completing his year as a DCI Fellow, he worked as a DCI Summer Research Fellow during his Davidson in Washington experience. As a Co-Convener, Logan is looking forward to partnering with community organizations in and around Davidson in order to further expand and deepen the impact of the DCI.
- Stephen Walker ’26: Stephen is a senior from Haverford, Pennsylvania, where he enjoys spending time with his two younger brothers and dog. Because of his fascination with the world’s ever-changing political climates and the ways in which politicians and others use various styles of rhetoric to sway public opinion, he is an intended English and Political Science double major. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, reading novels, and banter with close friends. The awesome potential of the conversation to bridge divides is what drew him to the DCI. As a Co-Convener, he hopes to work together with those of opposing worldviews to deepen our understanding of the world around us and to practice seeing things from another’s perspective as we work together to achieve our common goals.
The DCI has benefited from the involvement of several other Co-Conveners since its inception who we would like to recognize. John Crawford ’20 and Lizzie Kane ’22 served as the DCI’s inaugural student Co-Conveners in 2019-2020 and actively contributed to the design and implementation of DCI programming in its first year. In 2020-2021, we welcomed two new student Co-Conveners to our leadership team. Cadie McNaboe ’22 led the development of several of the DCI’s Deliberation and Pathway Guides, while Kyle Broxton ’22 spearheaded the DCI’s research efforts to analyze the dynamics and effectiveness of the DCI’s deliberation projects.
For the 2021-2022 academic year, the DCI accepted applications for two new student Co-Conveners and two new staff/community member Co-Conveners. They were Nathaniel Bagonza ’24, Kevin Chen ’22, Amoura Carter ’07, and Holly Thomas (from the Project Management Office), and they each helped continue the work of the DCI in its second year. Holly continued as a Co-Convener until 2023, while Amoura continued as a Co-Convener until 2024.
Kevin Garcia-Galindo ’24 and Peyton Carter ’23 served as our student Co-Conveners in 2022-23; Peyton spearheaded our outreach to athletic teams and Kevin led the development of our social media deliberation guide and pamphlet. During the 2023-24 academic year, Laegan Smith ’24, Daniel Lee ’25, and LJ Philips ’25 served as the DCI’s student Co-Conveners, while Mae Corley ’25, Emre Guvenilir ’25, LJ Philips ’25, Stephen Walker ’26, and Flo Moser ’26 served as the DCI’s student Co-Conveners in 2024-25.
Byron McCrae (Davidson’s former Dean of Students) served as a DCI Co-Convener from 2019 to 2024, Stacey Riemer (Davidson’s Director of the Center for Civic Engagement) served as a DCI Co-Convener from 2019 to 2023, and Jayme Sponsel (Assistant Director for Research & Instructional Design at the Davidson College Library) served as a DCI Co-Convener from 2023 to 2024.
Advisory Groups
The DCI Advisory Council was formed in 2021 and consists of interested students, faculty, staff, and community members who meet twice per year to provide feedback and input to the initiative. You can learn more about the Council here.
During the 2019-2020 academic year, the DCI Working Group and DCI Advisory Group, which collectively include over 30 faculty and students, were enormously helpful in providing advice and suggestions regarding the goals and direction of the initiative. Members of these groups came from a wide range of departments and programs, including Physics, Economics, Philosophy, Biology, Religion, Chemistry, Political Science, Anthropology, Theater, Communication Studies, Environmental Studies, Educational Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Health and Human Values, the Writing Program, and the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Student Fellows
The DCI also trains and convenes a cohort of Deliberative Citizenship Fellows every year. In its first two years, they included students, faculty, staff, and community members, but for a variety of reasons in 2022 we decided to tailor the opportunity for Davidson students. Each year DCI Fellows immerse themselves in deliberative theory and methods, help choose the issues for the year’s focus, facilitate robust deliberations on those issues, and record their experiences as fellows and sponsors of these discussions. You can read some of their reflections on the DCI Blog and learn more about the backgrounds of the students in each cohort below.
Faculty Fellows
Between 2021 and 2025, the DCI sponsored over 60 faculty members from Davidson College and 27 other higher education institutions to participate as Faculty Fellows in a year-long Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative. Click on the links below to learn more about the participants in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 DeeP faculty cohorts.
To learn more about what sparked the creation of the DCI, click here.
