The New Civic Persona: Organizational/Institutional Citizenship Reimagined

In this chapter, the persona of classical rhetoric is revisited and followed through its historical transition to a modern day descriptor of identity formation in groups and collectivities. A fifteen-year (2001–2015) longitudinal study at Wake Forest University revealed a unique collective persona of citizenship by a group of students (Democracy Fellows) who had received extensive training and practice in deliberative dialogue throughout college. Now as alumni ten years past graduation, their continued adaptation and practice of the model they learned reveals a modern view of “borderless” citizenship that challenges the boundaries of traditional organizational rhetoric. The new civic identity described by these young adults, former Democracy Fellows, also features distinctive rhetorical markers-community, complexity, inclusion, adaptability, efficacy—that align with widespread calls for the skills necessary to sustain democracy in a complex and multicultural world.