DePauw Stories

The Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership (ICDP), a national consortium that includes DePauw University, has received a 2025 Institutional Impact Grant from the Educating Character Initiative at Wake Forest University. The three-year, $498,534 grant will support a major expansion of ICDP’s student fellowship program and the development of new resources for ethics and civic education across higher education institutions.

Founded in 2020, the ICDP is committed to fostering character development through dialogue. It is a collaborative effort among DePauw and five other diverse institutions: California State University, Bakersfield; Harvard University; St. Philip’s College; Santa Fe College; and Stanford University. These partners represent a wide range of institutional types, including public and private universities, two- and four-year colleges and minority-serving institutions. Together, they offer a yearlong hybrid fellowship for undergraduate students focused on the cultivation of moral, civic and intellectual virtues necessary for engaging in meaningful dialogue across differences.

ICDP student fellows begin their experience by gathering for a summer training convention, followed by regular virtual dialogues and campus-based programming throughout the academic year. Fellows practice civil disagreement and facilitation skills, explore their own motivations and civic identities and lead dialogue events on topics such as free speech, reproductive rights, immigration and economic justice. The program emphasizes sustained community-building and authentic engagement, viewing dialogue not as debate or performance but as a practice of moral formation and civic responsibility.

“I think we’re at a moment where many across the political spectrum agree that our political discourse is not particularly healthy,” said Jeffrey Dunn, Prindle Institute Director and the grant’s co-principal investigator. “That brings a real sense of urgency to this project. I’m excited to work with students, faculty and staff as we learn how to have meaningful dialogue even when we disagree.”

With funding from the Educating Character Initiative, the ICDP will grow significantly over the next three years. The partnership will develop a shareable database of its training materials and pedagogical tools, pilot campus-based applications of its dialogue model and recruit 30 to 45 new institutional partners to form additional intercollegiate dialogue groups. By the conclusion of the grant period, the program expects to engage 400 to 500 student fellows and reach thousands of students across affiliated campuses through dialogue events, classroom collaborations and peer-led initiatives.