How does your alma mater resolve questions of free speech, academic freedom,
and inclusion?

Perhaps, like many of us, you're watching your alma mater grapple with hard questions about how to honor free speech and preserve academic freedom, while also establishing cultural norms of respect, inclusion, and belonging. In theory, at least, these various aims don't need to be in tension. The reality looks a bit messier, however.

Whether viewed from the internal vantage point of campus curricular and co-curricular life - or through the amplifying lens of sensational media coverage - it's evident that administrators, faculty, and students on many college campus have entered a tumultuous period of revisiting institutional principles and renegotiating institutional norms.

Can we transform conflicting agendas on today's college campuses into rich learning opportunities for all?

At Civic Health Project, we believe the answer is yes! Why are we so hopeful? Because we are deeply aware of so many promising curricular, co-curricular, and holistic approaches that can help today's college administrators, faculty, and students navigate these deep thickets of competing interests. Moreover, as colleges adopt and embrace these guided approaches, they will cultivate new skills - in civil discourse, dialogue, and deliberation - that strengthen our institutions while equipping America's students to engage constructively in civic life as adults.

Transforming conflict in higher ed requires embracing intellectual humility and intellectual heterodoxy.

In our latest blog (see below) we propose that colleges and universities committed to reconciling competing interests -- from free speech and academic freedom to inclusion and belonging -- must first and foremost embrace a combination of intellectual humility and intellectual heterodoxy. We then proceed to showcase an exciting array of curricular, co-curricular, and holistic approaches designed to help colleges and universities support robust learning while addressing and mitigating deep rifts that may otherwise corrode campus life.

Civic Health Project grantees Braver Angels, BridgeUSA, Constructive Dialogue Institute, and the Citizenship & American Identity Program at Aspen Institute are prominently featured among the organizations offering help and relief to higher ed. We also showcase exciting new reports like Transforming Conflict on College Campuses, an invaluable resource for administrators, faculty, and student leaders.

For those who wish to go even further down the "rabbit hole" of exploring conflict and transformation in higher ed, we offer at the bottom of this newsletter a "roundup" of recent articles and reports that we find especially thought-provoking.

Happy reading!

Transforming Conflict in Higher Ed

All of us have a huge stake in raising up a future generation that is equipped with the “right” knowledge, skills, experiences, and norms to carry our country forward. If only we all agreed on what is right.In our latest blog post, we explore curricular, co-curricular, and holistic approaches that uphold principles of free speech and academic freedom -- while also cultivating skills in civil discourse, dialogue, and deliberation -- on college campuses. Read the Blog

Meet our Newest Grantees!

We are thrilled to welcome two new grantees to our portfolio: Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) and Braver Angels.

Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) inspires women of faith to be ambassadors of peace who transcend partisanship and courageously advocate for ethical government.

Equally balanced between conservatives and progressives, Braver Angels works in communities, on college campuses, in the media, and in the halls of political power to bridge the political divide.

Riveting Report

Civic Health Project grantees Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI) and The Aspen Institute’s Citizenship and American Identity Program have released a joint research report, Transforming Conflict on College Campuses. The report aims to define the major contributors to modern-day U.S. campus conflict and help institutions build cultures that address contentious issues in ways that move campuses forward.

Read the Report

Remarkable Reading

Creating Space for Democracy offers a blueprint for achieving the civic mission of higher education by incorporating dialogue and deliberation into learning at colleges and universities. In addition to practical implementation, this book provides a conceptual framework, with leading voices in the dialogue and deliberation field providing insights on issues pertinent to college campuses, from free speech and academic freedom to neutrality and the role of deliberation in civic engagement.

Buy the Book

Provocative Podcast

Civic Health Project grantee Urban Rural Action is featured on the Areas of Agreement podcast for a discussion on the state of public discourse on campus. In this episode, two students share what they learned from a recent workshop with Urban Rural Action, what it's like trying to encourage thoughtful deliberation on their campus, and why that can be a challenge.

Listen to the Podcast

Revealing Research

This March, Nature featured the Strengthening Democracy Challenge, led by Stanford's Polarization and Social Change Lab and supported by Civic Health Project. The Challenge crowdsourced and tested online interventions to see whether they reduced anti-democratic attitudes, support for partisan violence or extreme levels of partisan animosity among more than 30,000 online participants.

Read the Feature

Enriching Event

Join The Village Square and Florida Humanities for an online event with Chris Stirewalt covering America's rage-driven political environment and what we can do about it. Mr. Stirewalt is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on American politics, voting trends, public opinion, and the media. He is concurrently a contributing editor and weekly columnist for The Dispatch. Before joining AEI, he was political editor of Fox News Channel, where he helped coordinate political coverage across the network and specialized in on-air analysis of polls and voting trends.

Register for Broken News

Higher Ed: News Roundup

We encourage our readers to explore these thought-provoking articles about the state of free speech, academic freedom, civil discourse, inclusion, and belonging on American college campuses. Note that several of these articles feature one or more of Civic Health Project's grantees!

• What's Happening to Conversation in College Classrooms (Forbes)*
• Discussing Politics in Classrooms is an Opportunity for Growth, Not Division (EdSurge)*
• How College Students Are Using Dialogue to Connect Across Differences: An Interview with Bridge USA (CDI)*
• Insights About Campus Expression From a Survey of Undergraduate Students in New Zealand (Heterodox Academy)
• Academic Success Tip: Guide Students in Constructive Dialogue (Inside Higher Ed) *3 grantees featured!
• Schools Battle Students' Self-Censoring in Classroom (10News)
• How Your School Can Maintain a Healthy Environment for Open Dialogue (University Business)*
• Turning Down the Heat on Campus: How an Online Educational Program Can Reduce Polarization and Improve Dialogue in College Classrooms (CDI)*
• Heterodox Academy Wants to 'Lovingly' Push Viewpoint Diversity at Colleges (Higher Ed Dive)
• Developing a Shared Language: CDI at William & Mary (CDI)*
• University of Richmond Students Discover Value in Encountering Difference (CDI)*
• Column: Free Expression is a Foundation of Excellence in Education (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• The Case for Teaching Students Constructive Dialogue at Scale: UNC's New School of Civic Life and Leadership (Heterodox Academy)

* Article features one or more Civic Health Project grantees