Teaching Civil Discourse:

In an era of deeply felt divisions in politics and culture, a growing number of campuses across the country are starting new efforts to promote civil dialogue on contentious issues — and many higher-ed leaders are looking to Davidson as a model. The private liberal-arts college, which enrolls just over 2,000 students in an affluent Charlotte suburb, began its Deliberative Citizenship Initiative (DCI) in 2020. It’s a project that involves students, faculty members, staff members, alumni, and even residents of the local community who aren’t typically part of campus life.

DCI has paid fellowships for student leaders, who train to facilitate small-group discussions; campus events like speaker series and expert panels; faculty workshops and a Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative to develop and share best practices for the classroom; and original research based on the work of the effort. 

The organization estimates that several thousand people have participated in its programming over the last half dozen years, including roughly 1,500 during the 2024-25 academic year. The average forum that year had an audience of about 150 — in person and online — and there were nearly 400 participants for facilitated conversations. 

Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill, senior director of civic learning and free-expression projects at the Council of Independent Colleges, says DCI’s work is “distinctive and a cut above what’s being done on many other campuses,” in part because it’s so multifaceted. 

She’s not alone in being impressed. Davidson recently announced it had won $4 million in federal funding — “the largest competitive government grant in the college’s history” — to help 100 other campuses learn from its approach. The effort will be run by Davidson’s Institute for Public Good, started last year to equip students “to address society’s challenges and emerge as ethical public leaders,” according to its website.

But what does Davidson’s approach entail, and how did the college arrive at it?

One of the ways Davidson students can take on a leadership role in DCI is through its paid fellowship program. Up to 15 students are selected each year; Dewar and Walker have both participated. First-year fellows make $12 an hour, working about five hours a week, and seniors make slightly more. 

Fellows are trained to facilitate discussions among Deliberative “D” Teams, which meet several times a semester and include students, faculty members, staff members, and community members. Each discussion session has a topic like health care or immigration policy. Dewar emphasizes how diverse the participants can be, creating opportunities for, say, “an 18-year-old freshman international student to debate with a retiree who’s lived his entire life in Davidson, N.C., about deportations.”

Fellows learn best practices for discussions, which include setting and adhering to conversational guidelines — not speaking in hostile or demeaning language, trying to be brave about sharing your views, cultivating empathy for the perspectives of others. Sometimes a facilitator might play “devil’s advocate” or bring in a point of view participants haven’t voiced. 

Dewar and Walker say the sessions haven’t changed their politics, though Walker notes that his view of climate change has evolved — he used to be skeptical of government intervention to tackle the issue; he now favors it. 

Sometimes students simply develop a different style of conversation. Walker says he’s learned “to present views in a way that’s more accommodating to people with different opinions, so conversations don’t always devolve into unconstructive arguments.” 

Dewar, a leader in the student Democrats club, may not have to navigate being a Republican at a predominantly progressive college, yet she says the politics on campus were “a little bit of an awakening” for her, too. “Davidson, while a very liberal college campus, has more intellectual diversity than where I grew up,” she explains. “Honestly, I’d never met a Republican. I’d never spoken to one. I’d definitely never been friends with one.”

Her work with DCI has reminded her to look for shared humanity in those she disagrees with. She still cares deeply about the issue of gun violence, but says her opponents’ motives matter. She knows none of them would say, “I like it when children die in school.” 

Dewar believes Davidson’s efforts benefit from its small campus, where, she says, you’re “going to encounter people with different beliefs than you, whether you seek them out or not.” At the same time, she acknowledges that some students still worry about a “social cost” if they discuss difficult issues in public. They might fear being labeled a bigot, for example, in conversations related to various identity groups, even if they sincerely believe their perspectives aren’t rooted in prejudice or hate.

“Having the kind of structured, respectful dialogue DCI offers can be a refreshing, safe way to make mistakes and learn as they express their opinions, without a fear of repercussions,” she says. She argues that Davidson has “a really unique culture of people wanting to engage with each other” — and that DCI’s work is sustaining and strengthening that culture.

Bullock says the main pushback to their work “is concern about platforming viewpoints that some believe are harmful to particular members of our community,” but DCI believes engaging with others’ views “can help us re-humanize one another, promote more public-spirited conversations, and improve our own reasoning and persuasiveness; censorship usually doesn’t work and can contribute to even greater polarization and further retreat into our own ideological silos.” He also acknowledges that “recruiting participants with a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives is a challenge we share with similar initiatives across the country.”

Still, those working on these efforts — at Davidson and elsewhere — hope they’re creating a foundation to build on, especially as more campuses follow their lead. Merrill, of the Council of Independent Colleges, notes that “students are the most credible ambassadors and models for their peers,” and, if nothing else, the number of those models clearly is growing.