DVP plays two roles: (1) as a resource to colleges and universities seeking to strengthen democratic education and (2) as a catalyst for institutional change around core democratic values and practices. We work directly with campuses, guiding them through a process of experiencing, studying, and strengthening the link between organizational change and social action around values-based initiatives.

Our experience is that the arts of democracy -- careful assessment and issue framing, meaningful dialogue, and effective, collaborative planning and action -- do not come naturally. These are learned skills that require practice. A complex blend of communities in and of themselves, colleges and universities are ideally structured to offer students experience in exemplary democratic practices -- in the classroom, in residence, in co-curricular activities, and in community-based learning experiences.

Yet colleges and universities cannot teach the arts of democracy without also modeling them. Not infrequently, we hear challenges that colleges and universities need to get their internal house in order, to practice what they need to teach.

Change initiatives around values-based issues present faculty, administrative leaders, students, and community partners opportunities to study, experience, and model the arts of democracy. DVP challenges participating campuses to create and sustain conditions where the arts of democracy and the values and beliefs that inform them are integral to the campus culture.