About

The Center for Communication and Democratic Engagement (CDE) helps network, mobilize, train and support the study and praxis of democratic communication on campus, regionally, nationally and globally. Topics of interest include the environment, education, social justice, security and identity.

We are guided by democratic values

At the CDE we value: listening, voice, difference, the environment, knowledge and democratic engagement. We work with partners on campus, in our local community, and globally on a range of issues--including but not limited to: energy democracy, science communication, a just transition, public participation, and diversity. Our CDE activities integrate research, teaching and outreach as well as reflexivity about how we communicate about cultural crises, conflicts and challenges through democratic practices (such as debate, dialogue, deliberation, mediation, restorative justice and performance ethnography).

Inclusion

Inclusive processes include cultivating active engagement to address historic and contemporary systems of power and inequity, attracting underheard voices, and representing the whole community where participants are considered equal.

Participation

Participation can include rich experiences from facilitating dialogues and deliberative conversations to something as deeply meaningful as sharing stories with strangers.

Reciprocity

The ideal that people are entitled to reasonable and nonarbitrary treatment and reasoning that reflects the practice of exchange in deliberative democracy.

Executive Committee

The CDE Executive Committee consists of three faculty members within the Department of Communication. The center also consists of graduate research fellows, graduate student affiliates, undergraduate volunteers, and an Advisory Board and Faculty Fellows across disciplines at the University of Colorado Boulder and at other universities.