On Jan. 31, 2017, the presidents of the seven University of Maine System institutions all communicated with their campuses our commitment to diversity and inclusion.  We reminded all of our students, employees and community partners that we embrace all of our students, no matter what religion they practice, how diverse their perspectives, where they come from or how long they have lived here.  In addition, we reaffirmed that we would continue to admit and support students consistent with our non-discrimination policies and we will identify the supports and resources necessary to all of our students to successfully complete the education they seek.  Most important, we reasserted our commitment to the principles and promise of our democracy and the ideal of liberty in which the opportunity to better yourself and your family through education is considered sacrosanct.

One of the cornerstones of our ability to provide an education to individuals and their families is to offer this education within a civil and inclusive environment.  More than anything else, UMPI has both an obligation to provide such an environment to all of its students and extended community members as well as educational experiences that encourage all of us to engage in civil and productive discourse.  This is critical not only to ensuring a safe and inclusive learning environment at UMPI, but to safeguard basic tenets of democracy reaching far beyond the classroom.  Colleges and universities are especially critical in this endeavor.  A recent national survey by Allegheny College, for instance, showed that nearly 50 percent of all 18-29-year-olds, both within college and without, believe that an undergraduate education is the most critical and effective institution in American society to ensure civility.

Perhaps the first question to ask, then, is the most basic:  just what is “civil discourse”?  A recent discussion held at the US Supreme Court (2011) defined it as “robust, honest, frank and constructive dialogue and deliberation that seeks to advance the public interest.”  Noted commentator and journalist Diane Rehm adds that it is our ability to have conversation about topics about which we disagree, and our ability to listen to each other’s perspectives.*

Writing for the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Andrea Leskes provides even more specific characteristics—namely, that civil discourse involves people who can:

  • undertake a serious exchange of views;
  • focus on the issues rather than on the individual(s) espousing them;
  • defend their interpretations using verified information;
  • thoughtfully listen to what others say;
  • seek the sources of disagreements and points of common purpose;
  • embody open-mindedness and a willingness to change their minds;
  • assume they will need to compromise and are willing to do so;
  • treat the ideas of others with respect;
  • avoid violence (physical, emotional and verbal).

Some of this may seem very much like commonsense or basic truisms: treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves, avoid personal attacks, listen to what others have to say, use facts and verified information rather than assumptions and innuendo and avoid any sort of violence, whether it be physical or verbal or emotional.  But it is much more than a collection of “do’s and don’t’s”—it is the exercise of a wide range of intellectual and practical skills that are developed with much training and often over a considerable amount of time.

To be honest, I feel fortunate that I grew up in a family that practiced many of those characteristics (although not always evenly and certainly not always simultaneously), even when the world around us did not.  I can still remember lengthy political debates between my grandparents, uncle and parents over presidential and senatorial candidates, as well as issues such as gun control and welfare—and this was far back as the mid-1970s!  As lifelong residents of Massachusetts, my parents were proud “Independents”—in fact, there are more Independents in Massachusetts to this day than either enrolled “Democrats” or “Republicans.”  My uncle and grandfather were staunch Republicans, however—and I recall an especially lively discussion about Ronald Reagan’s challenge to Gerald Ford in the Republican primary followed by even livelier ones over Ford versus Jimmy Carter in 1976.  Minds weren’t necessarily changed during these discussions—but the conversations were always held over picnics and barbecues and always ended with a greater understanding of why all believed what they did—even when they had to agree to disagree.  Perhaps, in retrospect, I’m being naively utopian, but I remember, more than anything else, the respect that they showed for one another, even though they differed in education, economic status and background (my father, for instance, was the son of a Lithuanian political refugee who fled the Bolsheviks; my grandfather attended Amherst College and worked for Mass Mutual).  In between trying to sneak some extra Pringles potato chips and Goldfish crackers, I listened in on their conversations about someone named Sargent Shriver, and a Spiro Agnew who had “resigned,” and how someone named Jesse Helms didn’t like President Ford.  And I learned that disagreements and differing opinions were an inherent part of what we have come to call “civil discourse.”  Back then, I just presumed it was how adults talked to one another.

I won’t belabor the fact that such is too often not the case today.  All you need do is troll your Facebook or Twitter pages, or those of various media/entertainment outlets, to find evidence of adults who seem incapable of civility.  One of the most popular formats for Facebook posts these days goes something like the following: “Person X just DESTROYED Person Y in this speech!  Share if you love it!”

The exercise of civil discourse entails a number of core intellectual abilities—and I would argue that those include things such as a) critical inquiry; b) analysis and reasoning; c) effective oral and written communication; d) a conscious understanding of one’s own perspective as well as its own limits; and e) the ability to practice all of these things with a diverse group of people who think differently than you do.  And if those are the qualities of civil discourse, then what we see on Facebook and Twitter is too often anything but that—because what is a statement such as “Person X just DESTROYED Person Y” but an act of violence, and what does such discourse teach but that violence (through language) is an acceptable means of communication?  Such language will never advance the public interest.  It is, at best, an individual yelling into a mirror and, at worst, a dehumanization of both ourselves and those around us.

This is why, increasingly, I believe civil discourse needs to be the bedrock of the educational experience—as it makes all other educational experiences both possible and more fulfilling.  We are fortunate at UMPI that so many of those core intellectual abilities I listed above are incorporated in both our General Education curriculum and major coursework.  But I will be calling on faculty and students alike to make civility an even more overt and integral part of the curricular and co-curricular experience.  There is simply nothing more endangered than civil discourse today—and nothing more important to the future of our democracy.

*For more information, see “A Plea for Civil Discourse” by Andrea Leskes at https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2013/fall/leskes