Living the Philosophy: Democracy in Action

What if democracy wasn’t something we simply studied—but something we practiced every day?

That question will come to life today, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at Warren Wilson College (WWC) when students, faculty, staff and members of our community gather for a conversation with author and activist Astra Taylor about her new book and the state of democracy.

It is, in many ways, Democracy in Action.

Not a lecture about what democracy should be, but a room full of people listening, questioning, challenging ideas, considering perspectives different from their own—and participating in the kind of civic dialogue that democracy requires.

That’s the premise behind Democracy in Action at Warren Wilson, led by Dr. Susan Ortiz, Professor of Sociology.

We believe democracy is a practice. It requires participation and a commitment to dialogue across differences. The willingness to listen, engage, contribute, and sometimes disagree—and still remain part of the same community.

And that belief builds on something Warren Wilson has practiced for generations: the idea that a college campus can be an ongoing experiment in democracy.

Here, students don’t simply attend classes. They work, live, learn, and make decisions in a community that depends on their participation. They contribute to the common good. They engage in civic dialogue. They register voters and have opportunities to serve as poll workers. They learn, through experience, what it means to participate in a community larger than themselves.

But experiments require resources. This work is possible in part because philanthropists are willing to invest in the idea that democratic participation is worth cultivating.

The series of events and faculty-led programming that will explore Democracy in Action is possible thanks to a $500,000 gift from an anonymous donor.

A new $350,000 Educating Character Initiative (ECI) grant, a project of the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University, focused on climate citizenship, will help Warren Wilson deepen this work, connecting civic participation with one of the defining challenges of our time. That kind of investment matters, because if we want young people to believe they can shape the future, we have to give them opportunities to actually shape it.

We can’t simply ask students to have faith in democratic institutions, but we can give them a place to practice democracy.

A place to disagree without disengaging.
A place to turn ideas into action.
A place to experience the responsibility—and possibility—of participating in something bigger than themselves.

That is Democracy in Action.

And it is one reason philanthropy matters: because the democracy we want to see in the world has to be built somewhere.

At Warren Wilson, we’re building it here.

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