Approximately 60 faculty members, post-doctoral fellows and doctoral students from across the University of Washington gathered at the Husky Union Building on March 7, 2025 to attend an inaugural Democracy Scholarly Meetup hosted by the Civic Health Initiative.
Motivated by these concerns about the state of our civic health and democratic institutions, the attendees met with the intention of engaging in generative discussions to determine what actionable steps can be taken to build a healthier, more hopeful democracy. The foundational question for the attendees to consider throughout the meetup was, “Given what we know as scholars about the state of democratic institutions, practices and civic health, what actions might we take in this University at this time to strengthen and deepen our democracy?”
A sampling of the 21 topics that emerged across two rounds of discussion were disrupting disinformation infrastructures, protecting academic freedom, intergenerational civic health, respect and civility, community-engaged scholarship to support and advance democracy and what civic education really means.
Attendees offered overwhelmingly positive feedback from the meetup, so a spring quarter follow-up event has been scheduled for Friday, May 2, 2025, from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., to allow space to explore additional topics. If you would like to attend the May 2 event, please register for the meetup by completing our RSVP form.