Last July, President Christopher F. Roellke, PhD, joined 70 other college presidents of diverse institutions nationwide to advance higher education’s pivotal role in preparing students to be engaged citizens, as well as to uphold free expression on campus. The commitments were made through College Presidents for Civic Preparedness, a consortium designed by the presidents and convened by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars.

Last summer, Stetson also participated by invitation in the inaugural Academic Freedom Institute at the University of Chicago, where universities were tasked with identifying their institutional structures for academic freedom and developing ongoing plans for embracing both free speech and inclusive excellence.

Here is a brief look at Stetson’s most recent self-report:

Center for Public Opinion Research

Stetson’s Center for Public Opinion Research, known as CPOR, a nonpartisan research organization, conducted public opinion polls during the 2024 election season, capturing how Floridians viewed the presidential race and ballot measures. Another poll, involving a national sample, explored key issues.

Setting CPOR apart from others is the engagement of students — one of Stetson’s “immersive” experiences. Students participate in every step of the polling process, from conducting background research and designing surveys to analyzing the data and crafting press releases.

Civic Mission

Central to the university’s civic mission is a commitment to inculcating the civic habits and skills necessary for students to solve the most pressing challenges facing the world. To do that, a growing ecosystem of dialogue-based programs has been developed, helping students talk about difficult subjects with people who are different from them. In addition, civic-action programs have been established to help students know how to build and use power to make social change. 

“Many Voices, One Stetson” Dialogue-Based Programs

The university’s slate of dialogue-based programs, known as “Many Voices, One Stetson,” includes a variety of options to engage students across different comfort levels and interest areas. As a result, every student has an appropriate entry point for developing those skills. The programs engaged 2,151 students (duplicated) in 2023-2024. Programs include:

• Things We Don’t Talk About At Dinner: lightly facilitated small-group conversations where students learn how to talk about controversial topics, such as politics, race and religion;
• Great Minds Who Don’t Think Alike: lightly facilitated dialogue between two or three well-informed individuals (typically faculty) who disagree about a controversial topic, effectively role-modeling what healthy discourse can look like for assembled students;
• Ask Big Questions: low-stakes discussions about an approachable topic, such as “What is friendship?” or “What is community?”;
• Flash Panels: discussions about a timely topic in the news that is affecting students (such as the war in Gaza), featuring a panel of experts/stakeholders;
• Deliberative Dialogues: highly facilitated dialogues to inform students about an issue and position them to collaboratively identify potential solutions to that issue.

“Changemaker” Civic-Action Programs

Stetson’s civic-action programs, now called “Changemaker” programs, include a variety of options to engage students across different experience levels and interest areas. In this way, every student has an appropriate entry point for developing those skills. In the pilot year of 2023-2024, 43 students (unduplicated) were engaged, with dramatic expansion planned for the current academic year. Programs include:

• Changemakers Academy: four-day summer camp for up to 25 Florida high school students who want to learn how to organize and take action on issues they care about. The students gain automatic consideration for Stetson’s Bonner Program upon completing the Academy;
• Changemakers Institute: monthly workshop series for current Stetson students to learn about social action through development and implementation of a project on an issue they care about;
• Phoenix Generation Conference: annual conference for approximately 400 high school and college students across Central Florida focused on training students how to take action on relevant issues. The conference is funded by the Ginsburg Family Foundation and, starting in 2025, will be hosted by Stetson.

Student-Led Stetson Votes Team

Stetson has been a national leader in nonpartisan student voter registration, voter education and voter-turnout initiatives. To prepare for the recent election cycle, the student-led Stetson Votes team hosted numerous organized events, such as voter registration drives, candidate forums, debate watch parties and even a naturalization ceremony. The team also hired six part-time student-outreach coordinators to personally contact all Stetson students (who are eligible to vote) to get them registered, enrolled in vote-by-mail, educated about issues on the ballot, and out to vote. In addition, the university has reviewed campus policies for political activities and protests to ensure students have guardrails for effective and enriching participation.

New Associate Director for Dialogue & Civic Action

All efforts have been supported through grant funds, most notably a $300,000 gift from the Ginsburg Family Foundation to fund dialogue and civic-action programming, and to fund a new associate director for Dialogue & Civic Action for three years. The goal is to position Stetson for a major gift to permanently endow this work by 2027 — with the vision of making Stetson the most recognizable institution of higher education focused on dialogue and civic action (for high school and college students) in the South.