Election years highlight for us what has been happening in the country for many years: we are (hopelessly?) divided. It’s hard for us to understand—to really talk with—neighbors, family members, or acquaintances who identify as being on the “other side.”
Our Padnos/Sarosik Center for Civil Discourse provides students (and all the rest of us, too) with resources and programming that provides an avenue away from the hopelessness of our deep civic divides. The center’s director, our SIS colleague Lisa Perhamus, has been getting contracted ever more frequently by municipalities, non-profit organizations, corporations, and community groups for training sessions, programming, and consulting. Demand is booming.
There are many ways you can get involved.
Firstly, check out the many Civil Discourse events this semester. Bring your students, especially to the annual civil discourse symposium (21 November): Gen Z Voices: If We Were President. Participate in one of the many Talking Together events, including the 1 October StoryCorps project: One Small Step. Some of you may wish to become trained civil discourse facilitators to work with Lisa on behalf of the center; contract her if you’re interested.
Just as we see ourselves as modeling interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship, so to should we ideally model what healthy civil discourse looks like, sounds like, feels like. We all save your very best civil behavior for our student. We should take that to the rest of our lives and communities too.
