Bringing deliberation to wcu!

I’m happy to have just finished an orientation with Grace Cheshire at Davidson College for the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative. As part of a competitive national grant which Grace, Vincent Russell and I were awarded, Grace and I are 2026-2027 Deliberative Pedagogy Fellows, with Vincent serving as our WCU coordinator. We are spending the next year learning from and becoming experts on deliberative pedagogy, a teaching philosophy which promotes dialogue, critical thinking, and collaborative decision-making in service of democracy. We, along with 50 other faculty across the nation, are all preparing to promote deliberation in our college courses and communities. It was valuable to be a part of difficult conversations about how higher education can and should engage with the problems driving polarization and threatening democracy. I think deliberation is one valuable tool we have in the wider kit of civic engagement efforts. It was also fun to connect with new friends and faculty from across the nation! I’m looking forward to creating meaningful community events this year with Grace Cheshire, Vincent Russell, PhD, and our DCN student fellows at Western Carolina University, coming from WCU Communication Department and WCU Political Science, Public Affairs, and International Studies. WCU College of Arts & Sciences.