Our Board of Trustees has affirmed the educational value of a campus community where everyone feels a sense of belonging—one that is enriched by individuals with different backgrounds, perspectives, cultures, socioeconomic experiences and lived realities.
A community that welcomes a range of viewpoints fosters intellectual exploration and a culture where individuals feel comfortable expressing their ideas. This contributes to a dynamic exchange in which people have the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, learn, and discuss any issue while upholding civility and mutual respect in all discourse.
Resources
- What is Viewpoint on Belonging: Heterodox Academy created a short video explaining the importance of broad perspectives and the role of confirmation bias. Heterodox Academy is a nonpartisan collaborative of 5,000+ professors, educators, administrators, staff, and students committed to research, open inquiry, and constructive dialogue.
- A Roadmap to Promote Campus Free Expression: This manual was produced by the Bipartisan Policy Center and offers helpful recommendations for college presidents and senior leadership teams, trustees, faculty, athletic directors and coaches, and student affairs staff. (Link provided is the most recent document available, dated November 2021.)
- National Institute for Civil Discourse: A nonpartisan organization based at the University of Arizona that promotes healthy and constructive dialogue in political debate.
- Promoting Civil Discourse in Troubling Times: American University provides suggestions for fostering respectful conversations in classrooms.
- Guidelines for Discussing Difficult or Controversial Topics: The University of Michigan offers strategies to help instructors lead classroom discussions on complex issues.
- Multicultural Education Program: UC Berkeley provides instructional tools for fostering accessible and inclusive discussions.
- Difficult Conversations: Teaching Tolerance provides a toolkit for facilitating difficult conversations.
- Difficult Dialogues: Vanderbilt University offers a guide for instructors to navigate challenging discussions.
- Classroom Dynamics & Diversity: Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning includes tips for managing challenging conversations.
- The Lost Art of Democratic Debate: Michael Sandel, Professor of Political Philosophy at Harvard, delivers a TED Talk.
- UTC’s Center for Reflective Citizenship: UTC’s College of Health, Education, and Professional Studies is dedicated to the revitalization of civic education in American schools and universities, and the equipping of a new generation of thoughtful citizens for the practice of democracy.