DCI Community Conversation

 Thursday, November 20 | 7:00 p.m. | 900 Room

Ice cream sundaes will be served! Join us and bring some friends!

In a time marked by a troubling rise in political violence, how can we, as a campus community, model the kind of civic discourse our society so urgently needs? This campus conversation invites students, faculty, and staff to reflect together on how we can foster a culture of free expression, respectful dialogue, and robust deliberation at Davidson. This event seeks to follow-up on the September joint editorial in The Davidsonian by the presidents of the College Democrats, College Republicans, and College Libertarians that included a multi-part pledge to promote a culture of free expression that rejects political violence. Several Deliberative Citizenship Initiative Fellows have been developing a set of aspirational commitments designed to build on that pledge by articulating specific, community-driven principles to help us navigate the tensions inherent in public discourse today. 

After the Fellows present their initial ideas, attendees will break into small groups to explore how these aspirations might play out in specific campus scenarios. They’ll also be invited to offer their own ideas on how we might develop a shared vision for an inclusive and deliberative culture of civic discourse at Davidson. The goal is not to generate new rules or regulations, but to cultivate a meaningful and authentic grassroots framework for how we engage with one another across differences, an approach that could serve as a model for other campuses across the country.