Grand Challenges: The Maryland Democracy Initiative: Building a Better Democracy for All

October 10, 2024
Living Democracy Symposium
A day of learning, engagement, and dialogue. This event is organized by UMD Libraries, with support from the Maryland Democracy Initiative (MDI) and will feature MDI’s Sarah Oates, who will be speaking about the First Amendment and "the Fourth Estate."

November 20 - 22, 2024
National Student Vote Summit
The Maryland Democracy Initiative (MDI) is once again co-sponsoring and co-hosting this event with partners Terps Vote and the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition. Hundreds of students, faculty, campus staff, administrators, and non-profit leaders are expected to attend from across the country. The summit aims to build connections within the nonpartisan student democratic engagement space, share valuable lessons learned, provide comprehensive training and resources, and ignite a shared momentum toward our collective goals for 2025.

Summary:

American democracy is in crisis. The lack of trust in democratic institutions—including in our election system, our public schools, and the news media—represent major threats.

Deep and growing polarization threatens to thwart any understanding of the common good. Dangerous rhetoric begetting political violence threatens our nation’s stability and jeopardizes a fundamental principle of democracy, the peaceful transfer of power. These threats as well as metastasizing misinformation and disinformation have significantly exacerbated inequalities and tensions across racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic lines, putting in question our two-century long experiment in self-governance. Without a vibrant and healthy democracy, we stand little chance of tackling other urgent policy issues facing the nation and the planet such as the climate crisis, structural racism, and poverty.

The Maryland Democracy Initiative will catalyze interdisciplinary innovation in three core areas: cutting-edge research, inventive teaching and learning, and impactful civic engagement. This initiative will establish University of Maryland as a force to empower students, faculty, and staff on campus—and our Maryland Democracy Initiative community partners throughout Maryland—as co-creators of solutions that remove barriers that threaten our future as nation and that ensure a better democracy for all.

MDI Photo from Constitution Day Dialogue Event

Panel photo from Constitution Day Dialogue Event on September 18, 2023

Team Members:

PI: Lena Morreale Scott (EDUC), Director of the Civic Education and Engagement Initiative	Michael Hanmer (BSOS), Professor and Director of the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement	Rafael Lorente (JOUR), Dean and Professor of the Practice	Paul Brown (SPP), Associate Clinical Professor, Public Policy, and Director, Civic Innovation Center	Antoine Banks (BSOS), Professor and Interim Chair in the Department of Government and Politics, Director of the Government and Politics Research Lab
Sarah Oates (JOUR), Associate Dean, Research; Professor; Senior Scholar; Director of Ph.D. Studies	Sam Novey (BSOS), Chief Strategist, Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement	Tom Rosenstiel (JOUR), Eleanor Merrill Visiting Professor on the Future of Journalism	Sarah McGrew (EDUC), Assistant Professor, Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership	Lucas Butler (EDUC), Associate Professor, Human Development and Quantitative Methodology
Doug Lombardi (EDUC), Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs; Professor, Human Development and Quantitative Methodology	David Backer (SPP), Research Professor; Research Director, CISSM

Partnerships:

Maryland Civic Education Coalition
The Vote 16 Research Network
The Big Ten Academic Alliance
Democracy in 21st Century
Students Learn Students Vote Coalition
ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge