Frontiers of Democracy will take place this June 22-24, 2017 in Boston. It is hosted by the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University, with the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, Everyday Democracy, the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, and the Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center. Register now because two-thirds of the spaces are taken.

Draft Schedule (subject to additions and changes)

View the full conference schedule, including speaker bios and session descriptions, here.

Thursday, 6/22

5:00 PM                                Registration and Reception

5:45 PM                                Welcome and Opening Remarks: Peter Levine, Tisch College

6:00-7:00 PM                      @Stake: A game for generating ideas and discussion.

7:00-7:45 PM                      “Short Takes” talks, followed by group discussion:

• Dr. F. Willis Johnson, senior minister of Wellspring Church in Ferguson, Missouri
• Wendy Willis, Executive Director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium; Director of Oregon’s Kitchen Table at Portland State University
• Jill Abramson, Harvard and former executive editor of The New York Times (invited).

Friday, 6/23          

8:00 AM                                 Breakfast/logistics

9:00-10:30 AM                     Plenary: Framework #1 for Civic Action:
Ceasar McDowell, Professor of the Practice of Community Development at MIT, presenting eight public engagement design principles to leverage the public’s voice in five strategic types of public dialogue

10:30-10:45 AM                  BREAK

10:45AM-12:15 PM            Concurrent Sessions. Choose among:

1. Civic Gaming
Joshua Miller, University of Baltimore; Daniel Levine, Community Mediation; Sarah Shugars, Northeastern University

2. How to Teach Democracy in Authoritarian Nations
Tianlong You, Arizona State; Haimo Li, University of Houston; Yao Lin, City University of Hong Kong

3. Are We Still Relevant? The role of Democratic Deliberation Innovators in a “Downgraded Democracy”
Jessie Conover, Healthy Democracy; Ashley Trim, Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic

4. How Do We Midwife the Emergence of Wise Governance Networks?
Tracy Kunkler, Circle Forward; Tom Atlee, Co-Intelligence Institute; Steve Waddell, Networking Action

5. Beyond Novelty: What Sustainable Civic Media Practice Looks Like
Eric Gordon and Gabriel Mugar, Emerson College Engagement Lab

6. Working to Instill Intellectual Humility in our Classrooms and Civic Life
Jonathan Garlick, Tufts University and Lauren Barthold, Endicott College and Essential Partners

7. Crime, Safety and Justice: Creating Opportunities for Citizen Decision-Making
Amy Lee and John Dedrick, Kettering Foundation; Martha McCoy, Everyday Democracy; Kristen Cambell, Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement

8. How to Start a Revolution
Maureen White, strategy consultant; Pedja Stojicic, Senior Scholar for Stewardship and Engagement, ReThink Health

12:15PM                               LUNCH     

1:15-2:45 PM                       Plenary: Framework #2 for Civic Action
Archon Fung, Harvard Kennedy School: Analyzing Faces of Power.

3:45-3:00 PM                       BREAK

3:00-4:15 PM                       Plenary: Framework #3 for Civic Action:
A “Fishbowl” Discussion of a draft Strategic Framework from Civic Nation + Co., moderated by Edna Ishayik of Civic Nation. In the fishbowl:

• Jeff Coates, National Conference on Citizenship
• Felton (Tony) Earls, Harvard University
• Lewis A. Friedland, University of Wisconsin
• Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, Tufts University
• Taeku Lee, University of California-Berkeley
• Carmen Sirianni, Brandeis University
• Janet Tran, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute

4:15-6:00 PM                       “Short Takes” talks, followed by group discussion 

• • Hardy Merriman, President of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflic
  • Rekha Datta, Professor of Political Science at Monmouth University
  • Ashley Trim, Executive Director of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at Pepperdine University
  • Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts

Saturday, 6/24

8:00-9:00 AM                       Networking breakfast

9:00-10:30 AM                     Concurrent Sessions. Choose among:

9. Teaching Youth Participatory Politics in Higher Education
Chaebong Nam, Harvard University

10. Working in and with Faith Communities in Times of Democratic Crisis
Elizabeth Gish, Western Kentucky University; John Dedrick, The Kettering Foundation

11. The Battle for the Soul of Our Republic
Adam Eichen and Laura Brisbane, Small Planet Institute

12. Democratizing Our Schools
Roshan Bliss, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation; J.A. Strub, Students Organizing for Democratic Alternatives; Shari Davis, Participatory Budgeting Project, and others

13. How might citizens use principles of opening governance to confront authoritarianism?
Jonathan Harlow and Erik Johnston, Research Network on Opening Governance, Arizona State University
Center for Policy Informatics

14. How to Make Public Engagement Truly Engaging
Maureen White, Former Public Engagement Campaign Manager, Go Boston 2030

15. Putting Democracy to Work: Community Action that Binds, Not Divides
Rob Jones and Meagan Picard, Founding Forward Democracy Labs

16. Social Emergency Response Centers
Kenneth Bailey, Lori Lobenstine, and Ayako Maruyama

10:30-10:45 AM                  BREAK

10:45AM-12:15 PM            Plenary: Framework #4 for Civic Action:
Participants will work in groups of eight to apply this framework and will add ideas to a Google doc.