National Issues Forum

Additional information will be provided when you receive your registration confirmation. Fee: $15 for the series or $6 per topic.

Select the series or individual topics:

• October 23: The Energy Problem-Choices for an Uncertain Future

• October 30: What is the 21st Century Mission for our Public Schools?
• November 6: Coping with the Cost of Health Care—How do we Pay for What We Need?

National Issues Forum (NIF) began in 1981 and were initiated by the Charles Kettering Foundation. NIF is nonpartisan and considers public policy issues. It is rooted in the simple notion that people need to come together to reason and talk—to deliberate about common problems. Indeed, democracy requires an ongoing deliberative public dialogue. These forums offer the opportunity to join together to deliberate, to make choices with others about ways to approach difficult issues and to work toward creating reasoned public judgment. Forums focus on domestic issues (unlike the Great Decisions program that examines international issues). The forums provide a way for people of diverse views and experiences to seek a shared understanding of the problem and to search for common ground for action. Forums use an issue discussion guide that frames the issue by presenting the overall problem and then three or four broad approaches to the problem. Forum participants work through the issue by considering each approach; examining what appeals to them or concerns them and also the costs, consequences and trade offs that would be incurred in following that approach.