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 and Assistant 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.
The DCI Assistant Director, Dr. Sara Copic, reports to the DCI Faculty Director and is responsible for assisting with the development, implementation, and assessment of the initiative’s programs and components. Dr. Copic’s experience at both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Notre Dame makes her a great fit to help lead the DCI’s efforts in creating opportunities for productive dialogue and deliberation in diverse classroom settings, outside of the classroom, and in the community.
Co-Conveners
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 2023-24, the DCI’s Co-Conveners are:
- Byron McCrae, Dean of Students, Vice President of Student Affairs. Equipped with a PhD in Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy and experience in improving student life at 10 different institutions, Dean McCrae is deeply committed to helping students navigate their way towards meaningful lives of leadership and service. Part of this work involves helping students identify and live by their own values, and thus he is well-equipped to monitor and ensure that the DCI accomplishes Goal #2: Reinforcing Humane Instincts. Dean McCrae also plays an important role in the DCI’s Deliberation on Campus Program.
- 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.
- Jayme Sponsel, Assistant Director for Research, Learning, and Outreach at the E.H. Little Library. Jayme leads the library’s efforts to support research, peer-to-peer learning, instruction, and outreach, and is thus well-situated to help the DCI build out its Research on Deliberation Program and work towards its Goal #5: Analyze the DCI’s deliberative processes and support support research on deliberative practices more generally. Jayme has been highly supportive of and actively engaged with the DCI from nearly its inception. She has participated in multiple D Teams, served on the DCI’s Advisory Council, created our DCI display in the library, and led our partnership effort to develop the Refresh Your Feed library guide.
- Amoura Carter ’07: Amoura is a Davidson alum who works as a project manager, content writer, and educator in the Charlotte area. Amoura believes in the DCI’s deliberative process and would like to see it grow to include more alumni and community members who often need an outlet to discuss important and sensitive issues in a healthy way. When she was a teacher, Amoura managed her school’s debate club and saw firsthand the value of listening to and understanding different viewpoints, even when disagreeing with them. Amoura assists the DCI particularly with its Deliberation in the Community Program and its Goal #3: Building Meaningful Community, while also helping with other DCI programs and components as needed.
- Laegan Smith ’24: Laegan is a fourth-year public health major from LaGrange, Georgia. At Davidson, she is involved in Planned Parenthood Generation Action (PPGA), Androgyny A Cappella, WALT1610 Radio, and Turner House. Laegan’s interest in the DCI stems from a growing frustration with her experience of discussion of controversial issues. She joined the DCI to help make Davidson’s campus a more accepting and encouraging environment in which students feel that they can engage in deliberation without fear of judgment. Laegan will be helping with the DCI’s outreach to student organizations and leaders on campus as part of its Deliberation on Campus Program.
- LJ Phillips ’25: LJ is a third-year Mathematics major at Davidson College. He is from Dover, Delaware, but attended a Catholic high school in PA. LJ was intrigued by the opportunity DCI gives students and alumni alike to be able to deliberate on issues that otherwise might be unthinkable to discuss without confrontation. He believes in the mission of the initiative and everything DCI stands for; for LJ, the ability to be able to converse and problem-solve an issue is a skill of supreme importance for our communities, country, and world. LJ will be leading the DCI’s efforts to reach out to Davidson’s scholar-athletes and STEM majors as part of its Deliberation on Campus Program.
- Daniel Lee ’26: Daniel is a second-year student at Davidson, proudly representing Iowa and South Korea. As a political theory, music, and soccer enthusiast (among many other things), he joined the DCI because he strongly believes in the power of conversations created out of diversity and spontaneity. Amidst an age consumed by artificial images of the world, Daniel hopes to bring back the eloquent art of deliberation to develop a stronger sense of public happiness in our communities. Daniel will be assisting with the DCI’s social media outreach and outreach to first-year and second-year students as part of is Deliberation on Campus Program.
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. 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.
Advisory Groups
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.
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.
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.
To learn more about what sparked the creation of the DCI, click here.