Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

The New England Center for Civic Life
summer of 2003, she emphasized the center’s academic identity and
made sure that its resources focused on the application of deliberative
dialogue to teaching and learning. This guiding academic
imperative moved the center to focus more on its projects within
the university and with other institutions of higher education with
which we had made mentoring commitments, and less on publicbuilding
projects in communities and towns across the state. Any
work off-campus had to be carefully circumscribed in terms of
how much energy and time could be given by center personnel
such as the rather low-level commitment that was involved with
the Citizens Seeking Common Ground sustained dialogue in the
Jaffrey-Rindge School District, or else it needed to involve students
as has been the case in the Cathedral of the Pines project in Rindge.
This new geographically local, higher education specific, and
professionally related focus has led to initiatives that have enhanced
and enriched the ways we use deliberative dialogue on campus and
in our teaching. As new faculty like Zan Goncalves, Molly Haas,
and Heather Tuillio became attracted to the theory and practices
of issue framing and deliberative dialogue, they brought this new
pedagogy into their courses in both their academic disciplines and
in the general education classes they taught. Their contributions
have helped us learn how to better prepare students for more effective
participation in forums through more concentrated study
of content associated with the forum topic or through the use of
panel discussions comprised of people telling their personal narratives
that connect them and the student audience to the public
issues being discussed.
Over time, the veteran center faculty like Donna Decker, Mary
Kelly, Jed Donelan, and Doherty have improved how they organize
deliberative dialogue activities and debrief them afterwards to
enhance the learning experience of our students. And every year
these faculty members mentor a group of approximately 10 students
—Civic Scholars—with whom they work closely to plan and execute
the many educational programs of the center. This past year’s Civic
Scholars, all of whom have been involved for almost their entire four
years, were among the best students at the university, receiving
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