About PDI
The Public Deliberation Initiative (PDI) seeks to engage students, staff, faculty, and community members in constructive dialogue and deliberation that addresses important global and local issues and offers new perspectives for participants. Deliberation involves the best parts of dialogue (conversational) and debate (argument) to offer an experience where participants can learn from one another by talking through different perspectives and approaches to local and global issues and working together to come up with community action steps
- Some Goals of the Public Deliberation Initiative include:
- Enhancing student involvement and retention, academic research and development, as well as community relations and outreach
- Improving the quality of public discussion and public participation concerning important institutional, local, and national issues
- Encouraging sustained interest and activism in students, faculty, and community members