UW Colleges/UW-Extension Colloquium UW-Fox Valley • March 24, 2011

1. Acting Deliberatively: Tools for the classroom, Eric Giordano, Ph.D. John Greenwood, M.Ed. UW Colleges/UW-Extension Colloquium UW-Fox Valley• March 24, 2011

2. MISSION The Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service seeks to address local, state, and national issues by linking public scholarship, civic outreach, and student service to enhance community life throughout Wisconsin and beyond. VISION The Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service envisions that all citizens of Wisconsin will become educated and engaged community members and active participants in civic life.

3. Where Is WIPPS Located? UW Center for Civic Engagement 625 Stewart Avenue, Wausau

4. Why WIPPS? • Reverse decline in citizen involvement in community life • Decrease partisanship and division in American politics and society • Invigorate public service as an ideal among young people • Reclaim the civic mission of colleges and universities • Bring a variety of knowledge and expertise to bear in addressing complex public issues • Encourage and sustain Community-University partnerships by bringing the strengths of both to increase communities served

5. Community Interests & Resources Public Issues Student Engagement & Service Faculty Scholarship & Research The WIPPS Model

6. PROGRAMS & PROJECTS (Sample): • “Bridging the Shores: The Hmong American Experience” WPR documentary and website (2008-09) • “Ethics of Stem Cell Research” Conference (2008) • Marathon Co. Crime & Punishment Public Deliberations (2008) • Wisconsin College Access Project (2009-2010) • Binge drinking Strategic Prevention Framework Plan and Implementation in Marathon County (2009-2010) • “Understanding and Overcoming Poverty” conference (2009) • “Hmong in the Past, Present and Future” conference (2009) • Wisconsin Idea Forum on Sustainable Communities – UW-Fox Valley (2010) • VITA Sites & FAFSA with DPI’s College Goal Sunday (2010-11) • RP3 Financial Literacy Research Project with WI Credit Union League (2009-11) • UW Colleges-UW-Extension Service Learning Initiative (2011)

7. Deliberation A way of talking, thinking and acting together Deliberation is premised on the idea that for groups (whether a community, classroom, or organization) to make healthy decisions, people must act together.

8. Public Deliberation Deliberation is a basic tenet of healthy democratic practice predicated on the idea that involving citizens more closely in making decisions that affect them strengthens representation, transparency, and accountability, and can lead to citizen action and results.

9. History of Deliberation First Dorchester Parish Church 1630

10. Not Politics as Usual • Deliberation occurs when citizens, not just experts or politicians, are involved in community problem solving and public decision making • Working with trained facilitators, citizens come together and consider relevant facts and values from multiple points of view • Citizens listen to one another in order to think critically about the various options before them and consider the underlying tensions and tough choices inherent to many public issues • Citizens strive to come to some common ground as a basis for action (if warranted) through reasoned public judgment

11. Deliberation Is Different from Dialogue and Debate

12. Why Public Deliberation? “The incredible shrill tone of discourse these days shows that our ability to have a rational and productive conversation about anything important in this country is becoming more difficult. Because of this, it is growing near to impossible to address our most pressing challenges.” Arthur Sulzberger Publisher, New York Times

13. Why Public Deliberation? More rapid decline in “cooperative” over “expressive” civic participation leads to rise in single issue politics, polarization, and declining civility in political discourse • “Cooperative” forms of civic participation: • Serving on a board or committee • Attending and participating in public meetings • Volunteerism • “Expressive” forms of civic participation: • Blogging or writing to a newspaper or politician • Signing a petition • Donating money

14. Public Involvement Spectrum Source: Adapted from the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)

15. Yankelovich’s 3 Stages of Public Opinion A three-stage process that obliges people to confront and overcome their own wishful thinking, engage and connect their deepest emotions and values to factual information, and create cognitive resolution through reasoned public judgment • Consciousness-raising • Choice Work • Resolution Adapted from Daniel Yankelovich, Coming to Public Judgment (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991)

16. An informed public is deeply grounded in our political tradition and essential for our democracy to work. . . . Yet scientists, like leaders in other fields, have enormous difficulty engaging the public on critical issues like global warming, bioethics, and other challenges that can only be solved when good science, wise public policy and thoughtful public judgment all come together. The American public can grapple with tough problems in a meaningful way, but scientists have to understand how to communicate the non-cognitive aspects of the public's learning curve. Daniel Yankelovich Public Agenda Press Release, Feb. 19, 2010 (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-02/pa-poe021210.php)

17. I Naming & Framing II Deliberation III Action The Process of Deliberation

18. Use Deliberation for Difficult or “Wicked Problems” • Three-Part Test: • Is the problem systemic? Some problems can be handled with a relatively narrow focus. Others are far more deeply embedded in a community. • Does the problem require an ongoing response? Think of the difference between a broken arm and chronic diabetes. The arm can often be fixed by a single treatment. Dealing with diabetes requires ongoing coordinated efforts involving multiple care-givers, the patient, and family members. • Does the problem require multilateral action? Some problems can be handled by one group, institution or agency, while other problems are beyond the power of a single entity to manage.

19. Public issues: • Land & water use • Environmental issues • Education issues • Social climate & diversity • Energy issues • Public safety • Criminal justice system • Economic development • Alcohol and tobacco • Health care

20. Public Deliberation Outcomes • Advances richer forms of public participation • Engages citizens in meaningful structured dialogue on complex problems • Allows input on public issues that citizens care about • Collects information about where the public stands • Builds public awareness of tradeoffs & challenges • Augments participants’ levels of knowledge about public issues • Cultivates trust and productive relationships among citizens • Fosters respect for diverse views • Increases levels of civic engagement and participation • Empowers people and builds civic capacity

21. Participants in Deliberations: • Change their minds (53%) • Have second thoughts about their opinions (73%) • Encounter viewpoints different from their own and think those views are positive (78%) Steve Farkas and Will Friedman, with Ali Bers, The Public’s Capacity for Deliberation (New York: Public Agenda for the Kettering Foundation, 1995)

22. National Issues Forums (NIF): • A nonpartisan nationwide network of locally sponsored public forums for the consideration of public policy issues • NIF are rooted in the simple notion that people need to come together to reason and talk—to deliberate about common problems before action can take place • http://www.nifi.org/

23. Benefits if NIF Model: • Expertly framed issue guides available • Issues framed nationally, but can be used locally—or adjusted to local needs • Historical issues framed by five Presidential Libraries for classroom use • Participants explore different approaches to public issues focusing on: • Strength & weaknesses of each approach • Tradeoffs of each approach • Values underlying each approach • NIF forums results feed into national decisionmaking bodies such as Congress and the Executive branch

24. Other Key Uses of Deliberation • As a pedagogical tool in the classroom • As a tool for organizational governance

25. Wake Forest Study In a longitudinal study of 30 students exposed over four years to a curriculum involving deliberation, the subject cohort students were more interested and engaged politically than their peers: • More involved in traditional political venues • More expressive of the responsibilities of citizenship • More analytical and critical of political processes • More efficacious in their political attitudes and language • More communal in political language and outlook • More imaginative in recognizing possibilities for deliberation and its broader application. Katy J. Harriger and Jill J. McMillan, “Learning Democratic Citizenship: An Experiment in Teaching Deliberation,” paper presentation at the APSA teaching and Learning Conference, San Jose, California, January 2008.

26. Deliberation as a Governance Tool • AOD Partnership Council of Marathon County • K-12 Education • Inclusive Excellence • Shared Governance

27. Lessons Learned • A single deliberative forum isn’t likely to change deeply held beliefs about political participation any more than one trip to a gym will convince us of the benefits of regular exercise. • Public deliberation as a practical tool is best suited to local or perhaps regional level issues where outcomes are more easily linked to decision-making • For governance and policy action, deliberation and related processes are most effective as part of a recursive model • Deliberation is not the appropriate tool for every problem, situation, or desired outcome • To be effective and to move beyond simple dialogue, deliberation requires highly skilled facilitation

28. Productive deliberation requires trained facilitators • Deliberative forums use two facilitators: one to facilitate the group discussion and another to capture information through careful note-taking • A skilled facilitator will have little trouble adapting to the process when exposed to proper training

29. WIPPS Offers Facilitator Training • WIPPS has trained nearly 50 facilitators and will be offering more training opportunities in the near future • Although the training is not free, the skills are not proprietary (and involve many of the same techniques as other forms of facilitation). • The skills learned are life-long and can be used in multiple settings, professionally and personally • WIPPS’s long term goal is to create a network of Practitioners in deliberation and to encourage sharing of best practices and research