At a time when public conversation often seems defined by fragmentation, colleges are increasingly asking how they can help students develop the habits of thoughtful disagreement. A growing number of institutions have created centers focused on civil discourse, hoping to foster intellectual complexity, humility, and respect. Davidson College’s new Institute for Public Good reflects this broader movement while also drawing on a distinctive institutional history — a culture shaped for generations by an Honor Code that places character formation at the center of learning.

In August, the small liberal arts school in North Carolina formally established the institute as a hub for civic engagement, ethical leadership, and open dialogue. Home to only around 2,000 students, Davidson has quickly attracted unusually strong support for the project, including more than $50 million from a combination of private and public funders.

The early momentum reflects a central claim of the institute’s leaders based on the school’s core identity: that the most meaningful civil discourse is rooted in a broader culture of character formation, rather than programming alone.

According to Chris Marsicano, the inaugural director of the institute and a Davidson graduate, this new initiative is the college’s “attempt to plant a flag in higher education and say, ‘We’re going to do this right.’”

“We’re going to develop the leadership for the next generation of leaders, and we're going to do it in the ways that we care about when it comes to character,” Marsicano said. “We're tired of seeing political leaders who do not have integrity, and certainly the American public are.”

The institute’s first major contribution came from the Educating Character Initiative (E.C.I.) at Wake Forest University, whose $750,000 grant and seal of approval evidently opened the floodgates. Since the beginning of 2026, Davidson has announced a $4 million grant from the Department of Education — the largest federal award in the college’s history — and, most recently, $47 million raised from a handful of alumni and individuals. In honor of one family of donors, the center has been renamed the D.G. and Harriet Wall Martin Institute for Public Good.

Honored Traditions

Marsicano didn’t always think of Davidson’s focus on honor and integrity explicitly as “character education.” But now, he finds, the shoe fits. 

“In some ways, I’ve always been into character education,” he said.

The same could be said of Davidson as a whole. Its signature Honor Code dates back to the college’s inception, and every year, the newest students continue to participate in a formal ceremony where they sign their names on the pledge not to lie, cheat, or steal. 

The implications are academic, but not only. Perhaps the most notable feat of the Honor Code is that it holds up beyond the classroom. Somehow, it doesn’t simply slip from students’ minds once they’ve closed their blue books or handed in their papers.

Connor Hines, a senior at Davidson, said the Honor Code shaped his thinking long before he arrived on campus. His mother, an alumna, had invoked the code to teach him the difference between right and wrong.

“I can hear her saying, ‘Well, when I went to college, we had this Honor Code and you weren't allowed to do X, Y, Z,’” Hines said. “And so that really has been the lens which I've viewed most of my life through and grown up around.”

Hines, now the president of Davidson’s student government, insists the Honor Code really does play out in the everyday. He said his peers and professors operate with such a distinct level of care for and sense of accountability to each other that his friends from other schools comment on the difference when they visit. The vow to return a lost wallet, Hines explained, translates similarly to an effort to remember personal details about others and make them feel known on campus among the crowd.

“If it were just a parchment statement hanging up in our academic building that you don't interact with, sure, it would probably fade away,” Hines said. “But just with the number of opportunities that you have to interact with the Honor Code, I think is what continues its enduring strength.”

Davidson’s emphasis on civil discourse has been similarly enduring. The school’s original debate clubs, the Philanthropic and Eumenean Societies, are known to have been the heart of early social life. The groups’ dueling members used to stand on the balconies of their adjacent matching brick buildings on the quad and battle back and forth on chosen issues. 

Although the societies don’t function today as they once did, the original sites remain, and every four years, the college republicans and democrats face off from the same balconies to debate the presidential election. A crowd of several hundred more students gathers to spectate. 

"The ability to disagree with each other is in our D.N.A."

The Eumenean Society remains a student-run civil discourse organization, while Philanthropic took on a more literary focus. At current Eumenean meetings, students pull random topics out of a bowl to debate that range from federal housing policy to M&Ms versus Skittles. Davidson students continue to feel the pull towards intensive engagement with each other in both the liberal arts academic and social life.  

“The ability to disagree with each other is in our D.N.A. We are a liberal arts college in a purple state on the border between two states,” Marsicano said. “We have people who are conservative from New England and liberal from the south. We have people from abroad who are as libertarian as they come and socialist students from right down the street. That is who we are.” 

Marsicano added that the protections for freedom of speech upheld in Davidson’s constitution are among the strongest “of any college in America.” “Any student group can invite anybody to campus to speak, and the administration cannot stop it from happening,” he said.

Hines, a political science major who grew up a short drive away from Davidson, considers himself a moderate conservative. His best friend and roommate for the last four years is a communist, the first Hines had ever met.

“I've spent way too many long nights and hours in the library having discussions and debates around policy, politics, political theory, probably to the detriment of my work,” Hines said. 

“You can have those conversations because we're a small school — 2,000 people — yes. But the diversity of thought within those 2,000 students is incredible.”

 A New Home

Now both the Honor Code and the tradition of civil discourse are taking up residence in a new home: the Martin Institute of Public Good, which will be operating out of the historic Philanthropic and Eumanean buildings.

With the Martin Institute organized into four categories of programming, the Honor Code falls under Ethics, Honor, & Leadership, while civil discourse is part of Deliberation & Free Expression. The other two areas of work are Public Policy & Research and Arts and Public Life.

These categories capture not just the variety of topics the Martin Institute is bringing together but the diverse approaches. Within the same center will be an arm for community engagement opportunities, for academic development and innovation, and for public policy and other research.

“It is probably the most ambitious academic initiative at Davidson College in the past 30 years because it is trying to follow a model that, at least to our knowledge, is not followed elsewhere fully,” Marsicano said.

“Our model is one that builds up character in a time where people are starving for it."

The funding from the E.C.I. is supporting work in Ethics, Honor, & Leadership, where the primary initiatives include faculty grants to incorporate character education into curricula and a national convening bringing together student honor councils at various colleges.

The national convening, which has been held twice now, is a chance for students around the country interested in ideas of academic and general integrity to discuss their common or unique challenges and help each other work through them.

Artificial intelligence and its implications for cheating, for example, have become particularly pressing concerns in recent years. Even if no one is entirely confident in the best way forward, Hines said, it’s exciting to be building a “network of leaders between schools that we can rely on if we continue to have questions or as we just navigate the challenges that we face.”

Hines also spearheaded the production of Davidson’s first-ever Celebration of Honor, a week-long, all-campus event to highlight the impact of the Honor Code. Programming spanned a panel of stand-out Davidson alumni discussing the legacy of the Honor Code in their lives to less formal gatherings, like an ice cream social, Hines called opportunities to “just connect.”

Another effort benefitting from E.C.I. support is an ongoing attempt to develop a new version of the Personal and Social Responsibility Inventory, a tool used to assess different facets of campus climate, to include academic freedom. That resource would allow Davidson to measure its own success in that area and help other campuses do the same. 

The $4 million from the Department of Education will go towards Deliberation & Free Expression programming, specifically the development of a Deliberative Citizenship Network. Through the D.C.N., Davidson will be supporting a group of 100 other institutions in their efforts to train faculty, support students, form partnerships, and engineer new tools to strengthen campus discourse around contentious issues. 

Marsicano said he’s not overly concerned that the funds from the Department of Education could be affected — that is, revoked — like other federal grants to higher education in the last year. But he was firm that should the money be threatened, Davidson won’t be sacrificing its own vision or values for the sake of staying afloat.

While Davidson focuses on bolstering opportunities and resources for its own community where its traditions run the deepest, it anticipates a new road as a leader in this work for others.

“Our model is one that builds up character in a time where people are starving for it,"
 Marsicano said. “They're starving for exemplars. They're starving for training and education.” 

“We just happen to have a model that is set up to do it.”

You can reach LearningWell Reporter Mollie Ames at mames@learningwellmag.org with comments, ideas, or tips.