CAMPUS DISCOURSE CHALLENGE

ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge and Campus Compact are partnering to support colleges and universities through a Campus Discourse Challenge—an initiative designed to scale civic discourse efforts across higher education. The Campus Discourse Challenge’s north star is to ensure every college student graduates with the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and practical experience to engage in meaningful and productive civic conversations across political and other differences.

Participating institutions will receive structured support, access to national models and resources, and a shared measurement framework for benchmarking progress and demonstrating impact.

Why This Work Matters Now

The urgency of this moment is clear. Across the higher education sector, polarization has chilled open discussion on campuses and isolated colleges and universities from their surrounding communities. Promising civic discourse programs exist across higher education, and more campuses are investing in this critical priority, yet we collectively have not yet achieved the campus culture change this moment requires. The gap is not one of intention or innovation but one of scale, shared infrastructure, and collective accountability.

Civic discourse is not an addition to higher education’s mission but a reassertion of it. Mission statements across colleges and universities commit to developing critical thinkers, engaged citizens, and individuals prepared to contribute to our democracy; each of these outcomes is inherently tied to dialogue across differences. Additionally, civic discourse helps to:

  • Address polarization and self-censorship: Students often misjudge the extent to which their peers disagree with them, leading to self-censorship and avoidance of difficult conversations. Structured discourse experiences can close this perception gap.
  • Meet workforce demands: Listening, collaboration, perspective-taking, humility, and problem-solving are among the most sought-after skills from employers. Civic discourse equips students not just to debate ideas, but to solve problems alongside people who think differently.

What Participating Institutions Will Do

Participating Campus Discourse Challenge institutions will engage in ALL IN’s proven model of structure, support, metrics, and recognition, adapted for discourse work:

  • Designate a campus lead at the cabinet level or with similarly empowered authority.
  • Conduct a landscape analysis of existing civic discourse, dialogue, and pluralism efforts on campus, including stakeholder mapping, assessment of current programming, policy review, and student voice.
  • Develop and implement a Civic Discourse Action Plan that includes: leadership commitments; curricular and co-curricular strategies; campus culture goals; defined roles for students, faculty, and staff; and multi-year, measurable objectives.
  • Build a cross-functional interdisciplinary coalition that includes external stakeholders such as community members, community-based organizations, employers, and elected officials.
  • Participate in cohort-based learning with peer institutions, including regular convenings (virtual and in-person) to share challenges, strategies, and emerging practices.
  • Engage in faculty and staff development using train-the-trainer models that equip colleagues to facilitate civic discourse opportunities with confidence.
  • Access national models and resources through introductions to proven approaches and low-lift programming that can be embedded into existing courses, orientations, and co-curricular activities.
  • Adopt shared measurement tools that assess student outcomes (e.g., confidence, self-efficacy, empathy, bridging skills, intellectual humility); program effectiveness; and change over time using pre- and post-intervention instruments.
  • Contribute to collective learning by sharing data and insights that help the field benchmark progress and build the evidence base for civic discourse work.
  • Receive recognition for excellence in civic discourse programming, with awards tied to measured outcomes and qualitative recognition of emerging best practices, growth, and contributions from faculty, staff, students, and leadership.

What Inaugural Cohort Members Will Receive

In 2026, ALL IN and Campus Compact will engage a cohort of 20 colleges and universities to support them in developing and implementing an action plan to scale their campus discourse work. Cohort members will receive:

  • Technical assistance and coaching from ALL IN and Campus Compact
  • Access to a shared library of resources, curricula, and program models
  • Participation in a national peer-learning community
  • Common measurement instruments and data analysis support
  • Opportunities for national visibility and recognition
  • Receive funding support to carry out discourse efforts, when available.

Join the Campus Discourse Challenge mailing list to receive the latest updates on this
and other dialogue and discourse work from ALL IN and Campus Compact.