{"id":4629,"date":"2017-02-17T09:49:17","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T14:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=4629"},"modified":"2025-08-13T19:35:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T23:35:29","slug":"civil-discourse-and-our-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2017\/02\/17\/civil-discourse-and-our-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil Discourse and Our University"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2016\/09\/Ray.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-4430\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2016\/09\/Ray-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"840\" height=\"630\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2016\/09\/Ray-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2016\/09\/Ray-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2016\/09\/Ray-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2016\/09\/Ray-1200x900.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nOn Jan. 31, 2017, the presidents of the seven University of Maine System institutions all communicated with their campuses our commitment to diversity and inclusion.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Colleges and universities are especially critical in this endeavor.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the first question to ask, then, is the most basic:\u00a0 just what is \u201ccivil discourse\u201d?\u00a0 A recent discussion held at the US Supreme Court (2011) defined it as \u201crobust, honest, frank and constructive dialogue and deliberation that seeks to advance the public interest.\u201d\u00a0 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\u2019s perspectives.*<\/p>\n<p>Writing for the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Andrea Leskes provides even more specific characteristics\u2014namely, that civil discourse involves people who can:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>undertake a serious exchange of views;<\/li>\n<li>focus on the issues rather than on the individual(s) espousing them;<\/li>\n<li>defend their interpretations using verified information;<\/li>\n<li>thoughtfully listen to what others say;<\/li>\n<li>seek the sources of disagreements and points of common purpose;<\/li>\n<li>embody open-mindedness and a willingness to change their minds;<\/li>\n<li>assume they will need to compromise and are willing to do so;<\/li>\n<li>treat the ideas of others with respect;<\/li>\n<li>avoid violence (physical, emotional and verbal).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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.\u00a0 But it is much more than a collection of \u201cdo\u2019s and don\u2019t\u2019s\u201d\u2014it 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0 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\u2014and this was far back as the mid-1970s!\u00a0 As lifelong residents of Massachusetts, my parents were proud \u201cIndependents\u201d\u2014in fact, there are more Independents in Massachusetts to this day than either enrolled \u201cDemocrats\u201d or \u201cRepublicans.\u201d\u00a0 My uncle and grandfather were staunch Republicans, however\u2014and I recall an especially lively discussion about Ronald Reagan\u2019s challenge to Gerald Ford in the Republican primary followed by even livelier ones over Ford versus Jimmy Carter in 1976.\u00a0 Minds weren\u2019t necessarily changed during these discussions\u2014but the conversations were always held over picnics and barbecues and always ended with a greater understanding of why all believed what they did\u2014even when they had to agree to disagree.\u00a0 Perhaps, in retrospect, I\u2019m 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).\u00a0 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 \u201cresigned,\u201d and how someone named Jesse Helms didn\u2019t like President Ford.\u00a0 And I learned that disagreements and differing opinions were an inherent part of what we have come to call \u201ccivil discourse.\u201d\u00a0 Back then, I just presumed it was how adults talked to one another.<\/p>\n<p>I won\u2019t belabor the fact that such is too often not the case today.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 One of the most popular formats for Facebook posts these days goes something like the following: \u201cPerson X just DESTROYED Person Y in this speech!\u00a0 Share if you love it!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The exercise of civil discourse entails a number of core intellectual abilities\u2014and 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\u2019s 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.\u00a0 And if those are the qualities of civil discourse, then what we see on Facebook and Twitter is too often anything but that\u2014because what is a statement such as \u201cPerson X just DESTROYED Person Y\u201d but an act of violence, and what does such discourse teach but that violence (through language) is an acceptable means of communication?\u00a0 Such language will never advance the public interest.\u00a0 It is, at best, an individual yelling into a mirror and, at worst, a dehumanization of both ourselves and those around us.<\/p>\n<p>This is why, increasingly, I believe civil discourse needs to be the bedrock of the educational experience\u2014as it makes all other educational experiences both possible and more fulfilling.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There is simply nothing more endangered than civil discourse today\u2014and nothing more important to the future of our democracy.<\/p>\n<p>*For more information, see \u201cA Plea for Civil Discourse\u201d by Andrea Leskes at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aacu.org\/liberaleducation\/2013\/fall\/leskes\">https:\/\/www.aacu.org\/liberaleducation\/2013\/fall\/leskes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.\u00a0 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 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