President's Notes Meeting the Moment Davidson's Commitment to the Public Good
December 5, 2025
- Photography
- Chris Record
Picture this: two United States Senators, from opposite parties, surrounded by a pack of college students. Is this an angry mob? Protesters? It is neither.
Instead, this is a scene that took place on my patio, outside the President’s House. Davidson leaders from the Student Government Association and every politics-oriented student organization on campus—from the left, the right, and in between—joined in spirited conversation with Senator Amy Klobuchar (D) of Minnesota and Senator Thom Tillis (R) of North Carolina.
The senators asked questions and listened to our students discuss the social and political climate on campus. They heard about Davidson's student-driven “Great American Debate,” a civil sparring, every four years, across the second-floor balconies of Philanthropic Hall and Eumenean Hall. Students narrated the expanding opportunities for free expression, policy research and debate, and civic engagement through Davidson’s newly-launched Institute for Public Good.
Later that evening, I had the opportunity to pose questions and join in conversation with Senators Klobuchar and Tillis in our Duke Family Performance Hall. Students accounted for about three-fourths of the audience, with faculty, staff and a few friends of the college making it a full house.
Yet, for me, the circle of students and senators conversing on the patio remains the defining image of that evening.
And this kind of exchange between students and public leaders captures the mission of our Institute for Public Good. The Institute draws on Davidson's deepest values—integrity, mutual respect, and preparing students to contribute to their families, communities and wider world. Our Statement of Purpose captures it well: to cultivate humane instincts and disciplined, creative minds for lives of leadership and service.
Our college purpose is perennial, but in the face of social and political polarization, our educational work has never been more timely. Situated in a purple state, in a major metro area, and recognized by the left and the right as a model of a values-based commitment to civic life, Davidson College is poised to meet this moment.
Much of this work will happen in Phi and Eu halls, at the heart of our historic campus. The balconies of those iconic structures, venues for those great student debates, emblemize the value of free expression better than any campus, anywhere. The college’s envisioned renovation of Phi and Eu halls, along with Elm Row, will bring together dynamic campus programs, most notably the Center for Civic Engagement, the College Crisis Initiative, and the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative, within the Institute for Public Good. We will also house our support for academic integrity and the Honor Code, and initiatives in ethics and leadership in the Institute. And we’ll expand programs in public policy and free expression while creating a new program in the arts and public life.
Our college purpose is perennial, but in the face of social and political polarization, our educational work has never been more timely.
Notably, the Institute’s home in Phi and Eu will be flanked to the South by Davidson College Presbyterian Church and to the North by the newly-installed and dedicated sculpture, With These Hands. Students and fellows working in a renovated Elm Row will look out toward the historic exhibitions in Oak Row. These poignant symbols of our college’s founding rooted in the liberal arts and the Reformed Tradition, our complicated past and the Institute’s promise of a bright future in which Davidson students seek to advance the public good—these are all present in this quadrangle.
We will welcome prominent leaders and scholars to the Institute for Public Good so that our students can meet alumni and others who put their values into practice through their work and their public service.
Perhaps you will be one of those public-minded practitioners who joins us on campus to circle up with our students! I aim for the Institute for PublicGood to be a signature Davidson program, bringing together our college community and serving as both a convener and model for wider conversations about our democracy.
This article was originally published in the Fall/Winter 2025 print issue of the Davidson Journal Magazine; for more, please see the Davidson Journal section of our website.
