Deliberative Dialogue Module

• Campus Compact offers a starter kit, Better Discourse: A Guide for Bridging Campus Divides in Challenging Times, for exploring how campuses can engage in inclusive, constructive dialogue – better discourse – for what many expect to be an uncertain and potentially tumultuous academic year.
  • The starter kit includes invitations for self-reflection (with a corresponding guide for mapping your campus) and directs you to tools, policies, and evidence-based practices for better discourse.
• The Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, an initiative of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, creates and highlights research, guides, and materials for talking about politically charged topics in and beyond the classroom including:
  • Facilitating Political Discussions: Facilitator Training Workshop Guide
  • Readiness for Discussing Democracy in Supercharged Political Times
  • How Faculty Can Prepare to Handle the Post-Election Classroom
• The National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) provides comprehensive issue guides addressing new and emerging topics, resources for facilitating deliberative dialogue discussions, and free facilitator training opportunities.
  • New for 2024: NIFI’s With the People is designed as an ongoing initiative that encourages sustained practices of public deliberation on campuses and in communities across the country. The initiative includes:
    • Introductory, advanced, and train-the-trainer facilitator training,
    • Monthly deliberative dialogue discussions,
    • Constitution Day deliberative dialogue discussions, and more.
• The National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement, a project of Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, publishes recommendations for colleges and universities to fulfill their civic missions including:
  • Election Imperatives: Ten Recommendations to Increase College Student Voting and Improve Political Learning and Engagement in Democracy
  • Election Imperatives 2020: A Time of Physical Distancing and Social Action
• In connection with Our Common Purpose, the Partnership for American Democracy is a nonpartisan coalition working to implement the Our Common Purpose report’s recommendations by 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence; the goals include universal civic learning and, notably, bridging divides.

Several organizations and projects also make it easier to facilitate your own deliberative dialogue discussions or participate in other discussions happening virtually:

• Interactivity Foundation
• James Madison University’s National Week of Deliberation
• Living Room Conversations
• National Week of Conversation
• Project Implicit and implicit bias tests
• Unify America’s College Bowl
• University of Michigan’s Dinners for Democracy

Periclean Fellows and other faculty and staff in our network have also created their own resources or shared other resources to facilitate deliberative dialogue discussions:

• Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence: Ground Rules expectations for classroom behaviors
• High Point University: Dr. Allison Walker adapted the Minimum Wage Determination Discussion Topic to include a series of pre-discussion assignments called “Empathy Adventures,” where students engaged in active learning through practice, followed by additional reading and deep reflection about their experiences. Additional resources:
  • Braver Angels Alliance of Central North Carolina’s Moderator Training for Leading Braver Conversations
  • North Carolina Campus Engagement’s Dialogue & Deliberation Training
• Widener University’s Political Engagement Committee: Guidelines for Facilitating Civil Discussion on Difficult or Controversial Topics

Please contact arielle@projectpericles.org if you would like to include any additional facilitator resources that you have created or would recommend from other practitioners, organizations, or projects.