The National Science Foundation has awarded Dr. Laura Wysocki (a WDPD Advisory Committee member) and Dr. Sara Drury (Director of WDPD) a grant to study effective science communication in the Wabash College Chemistry department. Portions of the grant will encourage better communication about scientific public problems.
For more about the grant, visit the Wabash news story.
by Kyle Stucker ’17
Students at Wabash College are not yet through one month of the fall semester. Some may still be getting used to the college environment after the summer, but this is not the case for the Wabash Democracy Fellows in the Wabash Democracy and Public Discourse Initiative, who have been hard at work since August.
The Wabash Democracy Fellows are currently beginning work on several upcoming projects. This preliminary work involves logistical concerns, discussion planning, and training new fellows for future discussions. Most of the fellows have taken a rhetoric course that trained students to facilitate conversations. Other fellows have had extensive experience facilitating conversations within the community and around campus. These facilitation skills are very important for the work of the WDPD initiative, and therefore some time is devoted to further training the fellows for various facilitation scenarios.
Each Tuesday afternoon two groups of six fellows meet to practice facilitation. These practice sessions last a little over an hour and attempt to mimic scenarios that Fellows might encounter during campus and community discussions. These discussions so far have been very productive. The new Fellows are already very skilled in facilitation and looking forward to the opportunity to test their abilities.
Another function of these small group meetings has been to discuss the primary principle of the initiative: Freedom of Speech. Fellows read and discussed a Yale President’s convocation address in which he urged students not to silence others because they disagree with their opinions. By discussing this address the fellows learned that further discussion is the way to properly deal with offensive speech. We also read material from the Supreme Court Case Whitney v. California. This discussion and others like it have been instilling the core values of the WDPD initiative and improving the skills of the Democracy Fellows as we consider how our work connects to rights and responsibility of free speech.
by Anthony Douglas, ’17
A new school year brings a new office and new faces around the deliberation table for WDPD. In the office, are some returning Fellows, but in addition to this are 8 brand new Wabash Democracy Fellows, ready and energized for what looks like a hectic Fall semester for our program.
Wabash Democracy Fellows at our first meeting of the 2015-2016 year.
The Fellows convened on August 26th for our first day of training. The feel was slightly different considering the fact that the program went from 8 to 13 highly qualified Democracy Fellows. As we discussed and prepared for the events this semester will bring us, we also spent time sharing what brought us to the program or back for the returners.
Around the table, the Fellows discussed our deep passion for working through community problems, as well as the satisfaction of taking an issue and helping communities find solutions. With the energy and work ethic of the men around the table and under the direction of Dr. Sara Drury, we are very optimistic about what this year will bring for the program.
This Fall brings familiar challenges, but also some new opportunities for success. Our current plans–they are always evolving–we have a five on-campus events, and potentially three campus events. This year we’ve been requested to lead deliberations in a couple chemistry courses, a biology course, and a campus mental health dialogue. In addition to this, we are working with several community partners to facilitate a deliberation about childcare in the Montgomery County.
The Democracy Fellows will be nothing short of busy this semester, but we are always looking for opportunities in civic engagement and opportunities to serve communities. All in all, we look forward to what the future holds for the initiative and ready to get to work.