The College Debates and Discourse (CD&D) Alliance, an initiative of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), runs an expansive national program that teaches students and faculty to honor ideological diversity, foster civil discourse on college campuses, and develop as leaders to carry the movement forward. Our debates and dialogues are not competitive or performative events separating speakers and audiences. They are immersive and highly participatory, inviting everyone in the room to express themselves freely in a collective search for truth. Conducted in a light parliamentary format and chaired by trained experts, they teach students to express their views, frame persuasive arguments, listen deeply, and engage respectfully around the most challenging political and social issues dividing our nation today.
We’ve developed a highly collaborative approach with faculty and students to organize debates around topics and resolutions usually chosen by the students themselves. Each debate or dialogue has its own unique qualities and is tailored to the particular campus community.
Since the program’s inception, we have launched more than 700 campus and classroom debates, workshops, and training events, engaging 28,000+ students at 147 colleges and universities. Remarkably, during the pandemic, the program flourished and grew exponentially as we took debates online to enable many more students and college institutions to participate. At present, we run a robust hybrid model of on-campus as well as Zoom-based debates, dialogues, and workshops. Our partnerships with college faculty are expanding as more instructors and professors work with our team to incorporate civil debates and dialogues into their lesson plans and curricula. Quick resources for faculty:
• Our Curricular Toolkit is available for faculty who want to work with us to implement an engaging classroom debate or dialogue assignment for students.
• Here is a fact sheet/overview of the CD&D program.
• Download a guide sheet for developing debate topics, featuring many examples chosen by students and faculty.
• Our eCourse module for debate chair training is available for free for faculty and student leaders.
• Download a fact sheet on a Braver Campus Dialogue, our newest immersive workshop.
• Download our 2024 Annual Report.
• View our latest Impact Report based on surveys of students from 39 institutions who engaged in our programming during the 2026 Spring semester.
College faculty, students, and program leaders explain how our civil debates can have a depolarizing, transformative effect on students, teaching them to engage respectfully with each other on difficult and divisive issues. Click on the thumbnails to view.
We have partnered with more than 110 colleges and universities, including large and small, public and private, religious and minority serving institutions. A partial alphabetical list starts below.
Launched in 1995, we are the only organization that works with alumni, donors, trustees, and education leaders across the United States to support liberal arts education, uphold high academic standards, safeguard the free exchange of ideas on campus, and ensure that the next generation receives an intellectually rich, high-quality college education at an affordable price.
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