This past August, the University of Michigan wrapped up its “Year of Democracy, Civic Empowerment and Global Engagement,” a themed year that involved campus-wide opportunities emphasizing the need to foster meaningful dialogue when confronting national and global challenges. A pillar of the University’s Vision 2034 plan, the University’s focus on democracy will continue past the 2024-2025 academic year as the Initiative for Democracy & Civic Empowerment.
The Year of Democracy offered a variety of resources, including a Dialogues in Democracy Reading List, Promoting Democracy Teaching Series and The Democracy Collection available as virtual courses. Inspired by another University-defined impact area, the 2025-2026 academic year will continue with a new theme – Life-Changing Education.
In an email to The Michigan Daily, Dom Adams-Santos, the strategic consultant for democratic engagement for the Initiative for Democracy & Civic Empowerment, said the themed year united students to share diverse perspectives and have conversations that spanned across campus.
“It brought together students, faculty, and staff across the University to explore democracy in action,” Adams-Santos wrote. “During the 2024–2025 academic year, for instance, the program supported a wide range of initiatives, from teaching, research, and event grants to student internships and public events, creating space for the U-M community to engage in democracy-relevant work.”
The Bridge Builders Initiative, a mentorship program to promote constructive dialogue and promote conversations across differences for student researchers, also grew out of the Year of Democracy. Public Policy Prof. Stephanie Sanders, director of community engagement overseeing Bridge Builders, wrote in an email to The Daily that the collaboration exemplified the Ford School of Public Policy’s interdisciplinary approach.
“By bringing together students from different academic backgrounds, policy interests, and lived experiences, the program enriches dialogue and makes conversations more meaningful,” Sanders wrote. “The impact is clear in how students describe their growth: they’re simply not learning concepts, they’re changing how they approach conversations, engage with peers they may disagree with, and use these skills into other areas of their lives.”
In an interview with The Daily, Jenna Bednar, co-chair of the Year of Democracy and public policy professor, said there is more to democracy than simply going to the polls on election day.
“Democracy isn’t just about voting,” Bednar said. “Voting is super important, but it’s what we do every day as citizens — learning what our rights are and also what our responsibilities are as citizens, what our options are as citizens, how our institutions work and how we might reform them.”
As the Initiative for Democracy & Civic Empowerment, Bednar said the program will function similarly to the Year of Democracy — continuing grant programs, implementing a faculty and staff planning committee and working on a Democracy Certificate program proposal — but the broader future of the program is left to the University.
“It will be up to the University leadership to decide, do they want to take this on a more permanent basis?” Bednar said. “ If so, we are ready to go. And if not, one thing we did is there are some relationships that have been built that I hope can continue.”
LSA senior Hillary Poudeu Tchokothe, president of Turn Up Turnout, a non-partisan voter education group, told The Daily working with the Year of Democracy helped the organization launch their new Maize & Blue Civics program.
“We are working with Year of Democracy now to bring experts from different policy fields and student experts to have a panel and we can have an open forum about policy and process,” Poudeu Tchokothe said. “We had our first one about the state of voting rights last semester, and are really trying to expand the initiative this year even though it’s a non-general election year.”
Poudeu Tchokothe said that to her, democracy means accessibility.
“I believe democracy is not something that you dip your toes into and then you dip your toes out of; there’s longevity to it, there should be sustainability towards it,” Poudeu Tchokothe said. “Democracy should be a part of everyone’s life — citizen, non-citizen. It should be a part of everyone’s life because democracy affects us in every single day in all ways you can even imagine.”
In an interview with The Daily, Public Policy junior Aidan Rozema, co-chair of College Democrats at the University of Michigan, agreed with the concept of the Year of Democracy but said some of the stances the University took throughout the year, like suspending SAFE, directly contradicted the program’s goals.
“I think it’s important that when you say you’re going to do something, you actually do it — you back it up,” Rozema said. “To me, I see all this high-minded language coming out of the University about democracy and equality and respecting civic engagement at the same time as they’re brutalizing pro-Palestinian protesters, abolishing their rights to protest and shutting down student organizations.”
LSA junior Alexander Richmond, president of College Republicans at the University of Michigan, said he works to create spaces for open dialogue for conservative students who feel they do not have as many opportunities to speak freely on campus.
“We give people that forum to express themselves and just the different nuances of their opinions when it comes to different policies, whether or not they approve of the current administration (and) the University policies,” Richmond said. “Currently, we’re trying to have an event with some of the regents where we can have an open dialogue with them about our discontent with a lot of the policies and the implementation — most of all — when it comes to free expression on campus.”
Poudeu Tchokothe said it is important to promote democratic values as non-partisan — one of the central themes she admired about the Initiative for Democracy & Civic Empowerment — because democracy is greater than institutions.
“I think democracy is resilient,” Poudeu Tchokothe said. “Democracy will outlive any defiance of the rule of law and any defiance of democratic norms and principles. Democracy will outlive that and be resilient amongst all these attacks.”
Daily Staff Reporters Dominic Apap and Aanya Panyadahundi can be reached at dapap@umich.edu and aanyatp@umich.edu.
