March 12, 2010
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William V. Muse, Director of National Issues Forums Institute, Kettering Foundation
Bill Muse is a director of the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI). NIFI is a nonpartisan, nationwide network of locally sponsored public forums for the consideration of public policy issues. Based on the belief that “democracy requires an ongoing deliberative public dialogue,” the NIFI Forums bring people together to think about, discuss, and consider solutions to problems that face our nation. Dr. Muse comes naturally to this position—he is a longtime educator with a resume that spans 40 years and includes stints as CEO of three universities: the University of Akron, Auburn University, and East Carolina University; as well as dean of the business schools at Appalachian State University (NC), the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Texas A&M University. Educated in the South, Bill earned his bachelor’s degree at Northwestern State University (LA) and his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Arkansas. Throughout his career he served in leadership posts such as director of National City Bank in Akron; president of the Southeastern Conference and director of Southtrust Bank while at Auburn; and, on the national level, International President of Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and member of the Board of Directors of the TKE Educational Foundation. Currently a resident of Cincinnati, he serves on the board of directors of the United Way Foundation of Greater Cincinnati. Technos spoke with Dr. Muse upon his return to the United States from El Salvador, where he was involved in Fuller Center for Housing home construction.
T.: What age groups does the National Issues Forums Institute target?
W.V.M.: While there is increasing emphasis at the university level in service learning in communities, part of the work we do at NIFI is to encourage both university professors and high school teachers to use the materials we’ve published to help their students to understand the issues facing our nation. We encourage, and want them to encourage, students to become involved in understanding issues so they aren’t overwhelmed by them and can feel they can get involved in solving their communities’ problems. In order for a democracy to work as it should, you need citizen participation by discussing the issues and problems and by giving informed advice to their civic leaders.
If we evolve into a society in which very few people are involved in our government, we will have an aristocracy that controls the government and its institutions, and we won’t have a say in how it works for us. Getting young people, especially, involved in discussing the issues is critical. I think the past presidential election showed us that they are very interested—but how can they become involved? They can discuss the problems in our society, and once they understand them and the possible solutions, they can write letters to the editor, call their congressman, and volunteer in their communities. A service orientation that goes beyond the intellectual experience of inquiry, thinking, and deliberating must have as its goal action.
How do the Forums work?
NIFI is a part of the Kettering Foundation, which is a research foundation that works with public policy institutes. Its focus is to answer the question: What does it take to make a democracy work as it should? The primary answer to that question is: “citizen participation.” But, how do we bring it about? There are three things that we’ve found to be essential to achieve citizen participation. First, we must understand the problems facing us. Just knowing a problem exists isn’t enough; we need to truly understand it and the possible solutions to it. In our Forums literature—our Issue Books, or Guides—we offer at least three solutions to the problem posed. We don’t advocate any one over another; we just present the solutions for deliberation by the Forum participants. The second thing is that the discussion is open to all participants. Each citizen has to feel his or her voice matters. That is what public deliberation is all about: finding your voice. But that isn’t enough. The participants must listen to the other voices. Everyone gets to express an opinion, and everyone’s opinion is heard. The third thing is the moderator tries to bring the group together to a common ground. What can we agree on? Can we decide on an action to take? That action might be writing a letter, calling a congressman, or working with a community group on a specific project. In fact, citizen participation is all about community service that will help solve the problem.
How are the Forums organized?
It depends on the setting. For instance, sometimes a public library will host a Forum discussion on a topic of local interest. During the past year, each Presidential Library sponsored Issues Forums leading up to the election, but the topics aren’t all about politics.
Each Forum has a trained Moderator who leads the discussion but doesn’t advocate a position. The Moderator tries to keep the discussion moving along so that it’s usually finished within about an hour or an hour and a half. At that point, it’s up to the Moderator to move the group to some sort of agreement on what action the group might take. I can see how this process might take a couple of class periods if conducted during a school day.
It sounds like the Forums are tailor made for older students.
Yes, they work especially well with university students and with other adults in the community, people who are inquisitive and concerned citizens. They also work very well with high school students. There was a time when civics education was required by all states, but that has changed—some say because of the No Child Left Behind legislation, which emphasizes reading, math, and science testing. But, whether that’s true or not, the point is that civic education—how government works and how laws are passed and citizen responsibility—isn’t required in many states at this time. Recently, however, in some states, like Hawaii, students are required to spend a certain amount of hours on civic education and community service. We’ve been able to work with those teachers who are interested in utilizing our Issues Books to moderate public deliberation to solve problems facing their communities.
How do the kids respond to the Forums?
The interesting thing is that many of the students say it’s the first time anyone asked them what they thought about an issue, what their opinion was about a problem. Besides being a great learning experience for them, it’s a motivating factor to become part of a group of citizens who have a say in what happens in their community.
Do you think the Forums scenario would work at the K–8 level?
Another interesting thing…Wake Forest University did a study of college students to see what would happen if they were given the chance to participate in Forums-like discussions over a four-year period. They called the group Democracy Fellows, and they sought to answer the question, what effect would participation in this group have on their civic involvement later? Their interest and involvement in community problems and projects was significantly higher than their non-participating peers. These days, with the Internet and social networking that young people have access to, they are much more interested and informed than we were at the same age. So, yes, I think the Forums format would work well in K–8 levels and with high school-age kids.
You mentioned before that the Moderators are trained…who are they, and where do you find them?
There are public policy institutes at universities around the United States where our Moderators are trained to conduct Forums. Teachers, for instance, can take courses at these institutes to learn how to moderate. It’s important to note that the Moderator isn’t a “teacher”—meaning that he or she isn’t there to impart information; nor can he allow one person to dominate the discussion to the exclusion of others. Each Issues Book includes a Moderator’s Guide, which outlines the issue and three possible solutions and offers some guidelines on how to keep the conversation going.
Let’s say I’m a librarian at my local public library, and I think our citizens would be interested in a Forum on global warming—and let’s say there is an Issue Book and Moderator’s Guide on that topic—how do I go about organizing a Forum?
We currently use what I call the “old-school” method of publication, where we print a booklet or tape a “Starter Tape” for Moderators and sell them to cover our cost of production and distribution. But now with the Internet, we’re looking at different ways of disseminating our products. What is the best way to get our materials out to people? Hopefully, AIT will be able to help us as we work through this transition time from “old school” to cyberspace technology. In fact, some of our materials are now available online at no cost. Hopefully, in the future, some can be purchased for very little by using PayPal and a credit card. We’re a nonprofit, after all, and not really interested in making a profit by selling our publications, just covering our costs.
We’re experimenting with different ways to get our product to the market, and on expanding our market. For instance, we’re working with Miami University on an online interactive Issue Book on Freedom of Speech that provides video and text. Another project is in conjunction with Michigan State University, which as a land-grant institution operates a cooperative extension service. The goal is to provide opportunities for local groups to discuss issues that are important to the State of Michigan and to share their conclusions with leaders of the state.
We’re very concerned about presenting the research-based information we include in the Issues Books in a nonpartisan format. In our society, there is so much information available on the Internet and through other media, but so much of it is presented in a partisan fashion. There are very few places where a problem is presented in a nonpartisan manner. Think about the recent election and all the stories you heard and saw about the critical issues facing all of us: the national debt, the cost of health care, the environment, diversity. Were you always sure you were getting just the facts without advocacy? Our goal with the Forums is to present the facts, offer at least three solutions, get the public deliberation going, come to some conclusions about how to solve the problems, and hopefully spur people to act.
How do you choose the Issues you’ll focus on? What’s the next Issue on NIFI’s agenda?
We have a lot of discussion through the year about what’s important to emphasize and what will engage the public in deliberation—and of course we can’t do it all. So we choose three Issues per year to focus on and produce our Issues Books and Moderator’s Guides. For next year, the Issues have not yet been determined.
You’ve had a long and varied career in education, primarily in university-level administration. How did you come to be involved with the Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forums Institute?
After 20 years as a university president, I thought I was going to retire—so did my wife! But when I retired, a lot of different opportunities came to me to serve on boards and to advise various institutions. The president of the Foundation, David Mathews, invited me to serve on the NIFI Board, which I was happy to do. I’ve always been service oriented and interested in public issues and in leadership roles, and the Kettering Foundation’s mission to strengthen democracy all over the world was very appealing to me. The Foundation’s focus is the United States, but it brings in International Fellows from Russia, Brazil, and other countries to spend six months in discussions of how democracy works. They then return to their respective countries to use what they’ve learned, but we in the United States have also learned from their perspective. I am very much a proponent of the Kettering Foundation’s efforts to be a catalyst to strengthen democracy by helping citizens understand the issues here and around the world.
Dr. Muse may be contacted at this postal address: William V. Muse, National Issues Forum Institute, 100 Commons Road, Dayton, Ohio 45459-9807; at these phone numbers: 1-937-434-5567 or 1-800-433-7834; or at these email addresses; muse@kettering.org or wmuse@fuse.net.