Webinar Series: Campus Free Expression During COVID-19
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Video Transcript
00;00;03;53 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Hello, I'm Jackie Pfeffer Merrell director of the Bipartisan Policy Center campus free expression project. I'm delighted to welcome you all today to our conversation, Pandemic Pedagogy: Remote Teaching, and Open Exchange. The first of our two part webinar series Campus Free Expression during COVID-19 the Bipartisan Policy Center is a Washington DC think tank that brings together both parties to find the best ideas to support opportunities as, and security for American families and BPCs campus, free expression, project promotes campus policies and
00;00;37;43 programs that foster a safe and welcoming environment for robust intellectual exchange count colleges and universities have a special role in our democracy in preparing the next generation for citizenship and leadership, introducing them to a broad range of issues and educating them about the values of respectful disagreement and principled exchange. I like briefly to introduce our four distinguished panelists. First Samantha
00;01;03;55 Hedges. She's completing her doctorate in education leadership and policy studies at Indiana university. And is co-moderator of Heterodox Academy's K to 12 education community. Al Montero is Frank B Kellogg, professor of political science and associate Dean of Carlton college. Libby Roderick is a director of the difficult dialogue initiative at university of Alaska Anchorage and vice chair of the national difficult dialogues resource center. We have to say a special
00;01;34;36 thank you to her for being up so early Alaska time. And Charlie Thomas is professor of philosophy and co-director of the McDonald center for America's founding principles at Mercer university. This spring, she was honored with the Joe and Jean Hendrix excellence and teaching award. And just a note for our audience about our run of show. We're going to have a conversation about, for about 40 minutes for strategies, for encouraging conversations about contentious issues and remote classrooms, and hoping to leave, uh, our audience of faculty members and administrators, some
00;02;05;20 actionable strategies that they can take back as they plan for this upcoming very difficult fall.
00;02;10;58 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: And we'll also have 20 minutes for audience Q and a, and you can send in your questions at any time by Twitter using the hashtag BPC live or in a chat function on YouTube and Facebook. So now to our topic, the move to online instruction, this spring was a trial by fire for many professors. And one of the most important challenges was maintaining a culture of open exchange in the remote classrooms. Students who melt might have felt confident, trying a difficult or controversial claim and the
00;02;41;16 femoral setting when in-person classroom, we're more cautious. When a comment could be screenshot at a recorded and faculty had to find new ways to establish a community of trust. That's so important for creating an atmosphere for Frank, a discussion of difficult questions. According to the, of higher education's tracker of college plans, about one third of colleges are planning for a hybrid model that will blend remote and in person instruction about a third are route planning, remote instruction only, and about half are planning to reconvene in person, but even
00;03;16;09 reconvening in-person many instructional components will be remote with deliberate approaches. Faculty can do much to create communities of trust and lively debate in their remote classrooms. And I want to start by hearing about, uh, what our faculty panelists have to save at these topics. And, and Alan gonna start with you when classrooms went remote at Carlton
00;03;37;16 the spring, what was it like and what are your apprehensions for the fall?
00;03;43;06 [Alfred Montero]: Well, for us as a small liberal arts college with 2050 students are our value proposition is the residential piece of it. That's central to the pedagogy of all of our faculty and all of our courses. So, uh, immediately, uh, the reaction was shock and just daily uncertainty, um, but credit to the faculty and to our wonderful learning and teaching center, uh, for guiding us to, uh, remote spring term. Um, but
00;04;14;19 we still felt throughout the term that like a, like a chef that was told to cook without a kitchen, uh, we had to make, do with the, with the resources that we had and their considerable resources, but we were, we were building a plane as we were flying it both at the level of, uh, administration where I'm working in academic planning for the whole college, to the level of the department and individual of faculty, we all had to make great adjustments. Now, the summer has been a bit different because we've had the luxury of
00;04;46;19 time, although not a whole lot of time to plan for the full, uh, trimester. We're one of those institutions, um, that will be a hybrid model using some in-person instruction with mostly online, uh, courses in the curriculum, at least for the fall. Um, so we've had some time to speak with epidemiologists, the state of Minnesota, uh, with other experts, uh, tap
00;05;13;11 the expertise of our own faculty, uh, to figure out how do we do this? How, how do we do something we've never really done before by placing public health concerns first, right. Safety first, uh, and then trying to figure out how we can still enable our faculty to do the considerable work that they do. Um, in this, in this new setting, it's been a, it's an understatement to say that it's been quite a challenge, but we're still, uh, we're still planning. We're still dealing with a lot of this
00;05;43;43 uncertainty.
00;05;46;43 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Well, we had to request to speak earlier. One of the things that you said was especially important that you're encouraging faculty, you started doing spring and really looking ahead to the fall is class social contracts that, uh, kind of help establish the environment that, that want for Carlton classrooms. Can you tell us a little bit about those?
00;06;08;51 [Alfred Montero]: Yeah. You know, I would say that a big part of the pedagogy of a Carlton classroom is, and I believe this is true for so many of our peer institutions is communication. The ability of faculty, professors, instructors, to communicate with their, with their students. And while we're thankful to have a high tech alternative to the in-person classrooms, so that we can do some measure of what we were doing before, something is lost in that, in that communication, something is lost a body
00;06;39;53 language or the personal contact, um, the sort of tacit ways that human beings communicate. Um, so with, with that considerable challenge, we had to think about how we construct social contracts. We really did this on a course by course level with every faculty member, thinking about the sorts of rules of the road at the very beginning of the term, some of them spell them out explicitly in their syllabus about how information in the course
00;07;10;25 would be used online, outside the course. Um, there were limitations to what could be done on social media, for example, um, in other cases, faculty relied on our larger community standards for the entire college, uh, and those were communicated and reinforced. Um, and, and Carleton students, I think deserve a great deal of credit. They adapt, uh, very quickly. Uh, that's not to say that they weren't challenged, but they adapt very quickly to these significant
00;07;38;51 circumstances. So I think in many ways in the spring we were, we were fortunate to call upon the residual social capital that we have at Carlton and this cultural understanding of tolerance and patience, uh, with the views of others.
00;07;52;53 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Oh, I want to bring Libby in here. Um, so difficult dialogues initiative. One of the things that you've also written about is establishing code of conduct or ground rules, and for this pandemic situation, what are you especially emphasizing as, as important and how do faculty members do that with our students?
00;08;13;58 [Libby Roderick]: Well, we also, as was mentioned, you know, went through the very quick and extraordinarily challenging pivot to move everybody into remote, um, teaching. And we will be doing that in the fall. In our case, we have a profoundly working class state with a profoundly working class campus. Uh, we are in the middle of the, uh, the eye of the storm of the climate crisis. And we, if you've been following the Chronicle of higher education at all, as a public institution up here, we have been the target of massive budget cuts under a governor that has declared that
00;08;47;33 he does not support, um, most public infrastructure. So we were already in a high environment And a lot of crisis prior to COVID. Um, and so my greatest concern in the fall really is the, as in many cases, the mental and physical health and wellbeing of students and, but particularly financial. And in our case, if
00;09;14;39 our students do not come back to our campus, uh, or the university of Alaska, most of them won't go to college at all. Um, and we have a large indigenous population here. So, um, in terms of working with faculty about how to engage in difficult dialogues in this context, we have to be incredibly mindful of the stresses on our students. Um, and that's always true, but even more so now where people are in households, where they have multiple people at the same time, and they're all competing, maybe for the
00;09;46;18 use of the computer, or they have to do childcare, they have to do elder care and they have somebody sick in the home and so on.
00;09;52;27 [Libby Roderick]: And so what I, so I teach faculty across the U S and beyond in terms of a wide range of strategies for how to engage difficult dialogues in classrooms. Um, and when I do anything from a one hour thing to a week long thing, one of the most important things that I teach as a strategy is this idea that it's been mentioned, and it's pretty widely used. I think that we need to establish guidelines for discussion, whether you're talking about, uh, an entire course, which I'm really thrilled to hear if entire campuses establishing this a course, a module, a discussion,
00;10;26;56 whatever it is before we engage with one another, we really do need to set up agreements for how we're going to engage. And, um, I promote the idea that it's wonderful if possible, to cocreate them with your students. If you only have five minutes to do it, uh, you, you do want to bring in your own ideas as a faculty member and say, here's how we're going to do things, which is fabulous. But if you have a little more time and sometimes people take a class to do
00;10;55;18 this, sometimes people take the entire semester. If it happens to be something where you can use it as an assignment for norm building or talking about ethics, or what have you to cocreate with students. And we have a process for doing that. We have a free book. We can offer you if you're interested in this particular one, but you're essentially asking students to brainstorm things that they've seen that really help discussions go well and things that they've seen in their experience that help them not go well. Um, and you, you create a, uh, a code of conduct, so
00;11;23;33 to speak together. And one of the things that, I mean, one of the reasons we encourage you to do it with your students is because they then become invested in it. They become monitors of it. You don't have to become the police person in, um, you know, how things are going. You can encourage them to think about what do we do with people. Don't go along with the code, you know, with the agreements that we've established, what kinds of norms should we have for that, so that it doesn't take anybody by surprise. And it also really lets you tailor the ways you engage with one another to
00;11;53;58 the
00;11;54;05 [Libby Roderick]: Specifics of the culture of that class or that campus. For example, uh, I live in Alaska, born and raised. We have seven major indigenous nations in Alaska. And so when we are engaging in a classroom and there are indigenous folks involved, they may have very different, uh, requests, needs, um, understandings of what kind of communication is .
00;12;21;35 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: I'm going to bring Samantha in here? Samantha, I know that, uh, you have assigned a preread about political conversations. You teach about the politics of, uh, K to 16 higher ed, which is a very fraught topic. And, uh, you know, tell us about bringing in a preread. I think you've used, uh, Paula Moore and, uh, uh, uh, the political classroom, uh, to set up helps help students have something to respond to in thinking about the class.
00;12;51;00 [Samantha Hedges]: Sure. Yeah. Uh, first thank you for having me on, um, I taught a class called the politics of education and it was focused on K through 16 and one of their assignments that they have throughout the class. So they had three times that they had to meet with their group to discuss, um, some questions that I set out for them related to the readings. They had done videos, they had watched podcasts. They had listened to, um, I was not a part of these conversations, so I didn't get on when they were having
00;13;23;09 the discussions, they had to schedule them themselves. Um, so I wanted to set the tone for kind of what was expected out of these types of conversations. Um, as far as, you know, ground rules, things like that. And so I had them read as their first reading for class, uh, the first chapter of the political classroom by Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy. So the goal of that reading was for them to, first of all, think about if they had ever
00;13;51;40 had this experience in their life. And they were, um, asked that in a discussion prompt in response to this reading that they were to do.
00;14;01;11 [Samantha Hedges]: So they had to think about if they had ever been involved, um, or taken a class in college or K through 12 that had them deliberate ideas or discuss ideas. So then they would write that discussion prompt I would respond. And it was a part of the lecture as well, um, to discuss this chapter. So it was really just to get them in the frame of mind that these group discussions were to be, um, deliberations of ideas. Now in deliberation usually come to a conclusion. So they had to answer
00;14;33;34 questions. So they were coming to a consensus on response to these questions, but also just this idea of discussion that you could have back and forth ideas that you could bring in your own personal experiences. Um, as well as specifically relate to the readings, um, that assigned for that week. Um, and that I really stressed that it was about politics, not politicians. That was a big part of it.
00;15;00;57 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Thanks for that. And Charlie, I want to come to you. So you're a liberal arts professor that perhaps pretty unusually had experienced teaching online before the pandemic. And one of the things that you've talked about to me is having accountability exercise to make sure that the students engage with the essential questions to the core. So what is an accountability exercise and how do you build it into the class?
00;15;27;16 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: Thanks, Jackie. And, uh, thanks to the Bipartisan Policy Center for setting this up. I've already learned things from my colleagues. So this is a, this is a great conversation. Um, so look, you know, if we were to walk into a face to face classroom that, uh, many people watching this are very familiar with, and we just said, um, you guys talk, you read, right, you're smart, you're committed students. Uh, you're here to do the work, so y'all just talk about it.
00;15;54;41 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: Um, we knew it wouldn't go very well, even if, um, even if they had done the reading and even if they wanted to have a good discussion. Um, we just, we know that we have to set up, um, discussions in class, both by setting up the syllabus to set up expectations for discussions and by modeling, um, you know, good discussion behavior and setting up incentive structures within the context of the class that has to happen for online discussions too. If we just create a discussion board or say, we're going to have a live discussion on zoom, but then we just sort
00;16;28;37 of open it up and say, you guys go at it. Um, we can't expect it to go well, we wouldn't expect that face to face and, um, going into a virtual environment, doesn't, doesn't change that. So, um, so we have to think about that. Um, so what I've done is at one accountability exercise is, um, I've, I've given real teeth to the, um, discussion, um, uh, board requirement for the class. I've also linked it to other assignments in the class. And I think
00;16;58;44 this is a powerful tool to, to link assignments to each other. So there's a, there's a scaffolding effect that happens. Um, and that's both good for the students developing, um, comfort with topics and with processes, but it's also good, um, for, uh, being able to have more sophisticated conversations that is if you set up a discussion board and as I do say, you must do one original post. That is your idea, your question, your comment,
00;17;27;56 plus you have to respond to two other students. Um, but that this is going to be a primary way that you process information with your peers. So you should understand those to be minimums, um, and, and continue to use the, uh, the discussion board as to whatever extent it's useful. Um, that sets up expectations and sets up boundaries, but then you are going to do
00;17;50;05 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: A live conversation. You can go and mine, the material from the discussion board and say things like, well, Sally, I see that you were interested in X. And could you talk about that a little bit more? Um, and so it both makes the discussion board more meaningful and it seeds the discussions that you can have live with your students, that sort of thing. There are lots of other examples.
00;18;13;54 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. I mean, it's, it seems like that helps you spring from the discussion board to the classroom is as a integrated community. Um, Al, I want to come back to, to you to just thinking about this, the special place that a classroom is. So, you know, a classroom isn't, it's not usually it's not completely closed and that people will talk about what goes on in a classroom outside of class. But, you know, normally, uh, you know, the professor starts class, the door is closed and there's a close community that creates trust. And you started talking about
00;18;45;41 that a little bit, but I liked just to hear a little bit more about maybe others will chime in too. How do you create that sense of trust, especially when people may be in settings that are not as conducive to that closed classroom feeling?
00;19;02;55 [Alfred Montero]: Yeah, I think it's most challenging when you're focused on issues that, uh, asked students to reflect on their own experiences and bring in their own sort of personal views. That's, uh, we're teaching generation Z these days, um, at many of our institutions and, uh, having children from that generation, I can say it's symbolic politics, uh, changing names, bringing down statues. A lot of these things matter tremendously. Um, but I teach public policy. I teach political
00;19;34;21 science, uh, value free social science. So how, how do I bridge, how do I bring students that are thinking, uh, in these identity and personal terms, um, into an arena in which they're talking about very difficult subjects, um, that, that, that might, um, create some fear that they're going to be judged, uh, by your peers. And so a couple of, couple of techniques I can share with you.
00;20;00;08 [Alfred Montero]: I focus on trying to displace their identity a little bit, like giving them an excuse to be somebody else. So in two, on two or four on four debates, I create advocacy positions and I give those advocacy positions to, uh, different groups of students. And I say, you're prepared for the debate, which may maybe preparation that is done outside of class and overnight. And then they come into class. I may only judge the arguments in the debate based on the value of those arguments. We never assume that those positions are in some way reflective of the personal
00;20;31;48 views of the people who are engaging in the thing over time, what's being taught is the norm of tolerance for dealing with other arguments that you disagree with, like focusing on the premises of those arguments, rather than the people that are making those arguments a more direct way of doing this would be in a simulation and would be, and the dossier identity that is not the identity of the student or the student, and have that student play out that identity and anything being theoretic, strategic interactive
00;21;01;23 game of saying democratic transition and comparative perspective, or negotiating the tension between public health policy, an individual policy, uh, individual Liberty, uh, and then sort of work on a piece of legislation or have a simulated constitutional convention in which a lot of these, uh, utterly important tensions are, are they, the students have to deal with them, but they're holding positions and identities that are not necessarily
00;21;31;53 positions that they agree with.
00;21;34;13 [Alfred Montero]: Um, and then finally, I sometimes invoke my, you know, my own sort of position as the instructor who channel a voice different arguments that they might not listen to that otherwise. And I'll say for the next 30 minutes, I'm going to take the position of an owner of a coal mine in West Virginia. And we're going to talk about environmental policy, and I want you to ask questions, no ad hominem attacks. Uh, you need to deal with the premise of my argument. And the goal here is to build a bridge to my position and get needed to maybe nudge me a little bit on my
00;22;10;12 positions that I can see the value of what you're saying are those are frustrating exercises.
00;22;17;35 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Let's bring Samantha in. What about building trust, Samantha? And what are your strategies?
00;22;25;15 [Samantha Hedges]: Yeah, so, um, as I mentioned, I did group discussions. Now I taught this online class, um, pre COVID-19. I taught it for four semesters. So just as a side note, um, so they were able to go on campus and get access to technology they needed, but they, their group discussions were via zoom. They had to have audio and a visual with the people they were in the group with. So I kept my students in the same group for the entire, for the duration of the course now, you know, it would be
00;22;57;00 nice for them to get to know other people in the class, but I felt that this was really important to build trust because they were talking about, you know, topics of political nature. Um, now everyone had gone to school, so they all had their own perspective that they could kind of share and learn from each other. And I would notice that over time, those group discussions, people spoke more freely, you know, towards the end of the class than they did at the beginning. I think that was attributed to, um,
00;23;25;40 having them stay with the same group the whole time. Yeah,
00;23;30;21 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: I think in terms of building the, getting to know one another in his community of trust, uh, Libby, one of the things that I know the difficult dialogues and initiative recommends is a, is a circle of object exercise. Can you just tell us how that, What it is and how it builds trust?
00;23;48;49 [Libby Roderick]: Sure. It's so interesting listening to this because there's so much to say, I barely know where to start. Um, so in terms of building trust, I mean, I think everybody knows online learning or remote learning is more challenging no matter what, whether you're in COVID or, or in regular times. And so all the things we usually would do, which is to have students share profiles about themselves and, uh, do icebreaker kinds of things. So they get to know each other and so forth. Um, let me just back up and say, there is a free resource. I really want to make it
00;24;19;56 available to anybody online, and we can find a way to send out the, um, the link on a chat called start talking a handbook for engaging difficult dialogues in higher education. We put it out as part of our initiative about 12 years ago. And it, it contains just a, uh, a boatload of, um, strategies for all these kinds of things. One of which is the circle of objects. I'll speak to that. Some of which are about trust building and many of which build on what Al was saying, which is, there are such a wide range of strategies that are
00;24;50;39 fun for students that are interesting and engaging for students that are active, that can be transferred into an online context that allows students to articulate their viewpoints on a particular topic, um, without revealing their own personal biases or struggles, or what have you. And he's mentioned a couple of them, there are a whole lot more, um, so we can go into that and the questions that people want to, but in terms of the circle of objects, it's a very basic exercise. Again, many people may have done it in different ways before the way we teach it has to do with inviting
00;25;21;43 students to bring in an object that is meaningful to them in terms of their cultural or class background, you can adapt it as you need to, um, and just simply speak for two or three minutes and it's timed.
00;25;35;36 [Libby Roderick]: And it's the same amount of time for every person, um, to share what is significant about that, uh, to them, I work with faculty, as I mentioned, um, and I have never done this exercise with faculty where somebody doesn't burst into tears, because what it does is it really allows people to bring in their multidimensionality into a learning environment. And as everybody knows, I think, um, it's important to identify one's positionality when we speak in these things, it matters whether or not you are Latin X, it matters whether or not you are first
00;26;06;15 generation. It matters whether or not you are indigenous or whether you are male or whatever your, you know, your background is. And when people bring these things in, uh, people really begin to get a picture of what deeply matters to them and where they're coming from. So that by the time you then engage in a topic on healthcare equity issues or gun control or sexual violence or immigration, or the climate crisis, you have a much deeper empathy for where they are speaking from.
00;26;33;50 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. I want to pick up on something that Al mentioned a few minutes ago, we were teaching it in many schools, uh, generation Z students, And, uh, who are, are different in some ways from a past generation, the Pew research center, uh, says that, uh, more people are growing up in, in think alike communities where demographic and politics are more alike. So people grew up knowing a few people who's partisanship whose news sources
00;27;04;13 whose political and social views is. So our socioeconomic background is, is different from their own. And so when freshmen come to campus, they've got a couple of different challenges there they're meeting for the first time, more people who are maybe different from themselves. And also, uh, they're coming into a collegiate classroom environment. That's much less structured, uh, in most cases, the high school classrooms. So it's just, they're there, the level of conversation and challenges and conversation
00;27;34;20 goes up. And I just would like to really ask about are matriculating first year students, and what can we do for them, especially to set them up for success in this, uh, difficult moment when they're, they're not coming on to what's a normal first year, semester, Charlie, maybe I'll start with you.
00;27;57;21 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: Oh yeah. I, I, I'm thinking about this a lot. Um, you know, a lot of people, including myself have been more or less isolated for several months now. Um, Mercer's going back to face to face learning. Um, we have a mandate that students that we need to design classes so that students can keep up if they're quarantined, not, not just catch up, but keep up, which means all of our courses have to be somewhat hybridized. Um, but we have to, we're, we're all we're doing face to face primarily. Um,
00;28;28;50 and there is so much anxiety and stress, um, around that. And I think these issues that you're talking about, you know, gen Z or are definitely gonna come out, I think, uh, a lot of I have a 17 year old son. I talked to him about this, his friends, and talk to some of my students and they're anxious to come back most of them. Um, but their, their families are worried for them. I know a lot of faculty members are worried. And so I think we're going to see a lot of rawness. I already to frankly see it from some of my colleagues as we talk about
00;29;00;37 getting back into the school year and negotiate things that are really, um, not usually charged, uh, that, um, that people were raw and anxious. And, um, and so I do think that, um, in the classroom that's going to play out in conversations. I mean, if people are raw, they're more impulsive and people are more impulsive sometimes. Um, the, the, the way that dialogue emerges can be a little bit more, um, difficult. So I think for me, it's
00;29;30;04 actually more important than ever to, to have good structures in place, um, to make sure that I'm on top of these things, that if I do online discussions, that I'm them all
00;29;42;14 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: The time that I'm making sure that students introduce themselves. I love these things that Libby's talking about, make sure that, um, that we are human to each other so that these conversations take place in that context. And people are, uh, less, um, willing to, uh, objectified positions and more attuned to the human beings that they're facing, whether it's in class or online. So there, there are a lot of things we could do, but I am I'm. I think this is a really important thing for us to build into our syllabus, to go in with this understanding that,
00;30;13;52 that we're going to be dealing with heightened stress, heightened anxiety, um, and perhaps more difficult dialogues because of that.
00;30;24;27 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: I want to remind our audience that in just about 10 minutes, we'll be moving to questions and you can send them in by tweeting with hashtag BPC live or on the YouTube or Facebook chat function. And I want to keep up this conversation of really more difficult dialogue. So we're looking ahead to the 2020 election season, you know, for generations, these are voters. Many of them will be the first time voters. And one of the things that we do at BPC is to bring liberals and
00;30;55;08 conservatives, Republicans, and Democrats together to find pragmatic compromises, um, even in spite of principal disagreements. And so I want to think about bringing liberals and conservatives, uh, together and in college classrooms. Uh, someone like to, to have an idea about how you bring liberals and conservatives together to talk about things in a, in an election semester.
00;31;22;15 [Libby Roderick]: Well, can I just say a show To a group of younger people? I mean, a group of students who contacted me on the basis of the fact that they'd seen this flyer here today, I believe it's called bridge USA. Maybe you all know about it have worked with them. Yeah. Wonderful. And they're working on bringing liberals and conservatives together in the student from a student driven context, which I really support. I think that's a fantastic model. There's one at the university of Michigan as well called. We listened to the student driven, um, more, they
00;31;56;10 make agreements beforehand where they agree on the facts beforehand and so forth. And so I think reaching to some of these student organizations that is, is, are intending to do exactly that for their own generation is really interesting.
00;32;10;50 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: I think it's really important to give students that chance to create the buzz around the election, whether it's, uh, uh, debate, uh, listening parties or watching parties or a other kind of BridgeUSA have wonderful leadership. Their CEO Manu Meel spoke at our constitution day event at BBC last year in his that, uh, linked that event is available on our website as I saw someone else. Yeah.
00;32;36;45 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: Can I jump in on this really quickly? And, and I, and I see that we have a question That's come in from someone who's watching too about. And I think it's related to the question you just asked, and that is about how to respond to a student who refuses to engage because they think, um, something is fundamentally dangerous or harmful. Um, and, and this I think is related, um, to this question about how you foster, um, bipartisan or partisan debates when you have students coming in self-identifying, um, with one of those ideologies or, or political affiliations. Um, and I just have two,
00;33;09;58 two thoughts on this. I'm sure my colleagues in this discussion have many more, but, um, one is, um, is, is that the more content driven those conversations are, um, the more that you can begin to push through some of the, the surface rhetoric, um, the partisan rhetoric on the surface. So I would say that, um, returning, you know, requiring research on, on certain
00;33;38;03 things, when a student says, I won't engage this because I'm afraid it's harmful to really, whether it's in private, probably in private, but say you really want some more information about why that's your position and where your information is coming from and if possible, to move it into the classroom.
00;33;55;18 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: And then the second idea, it's very simple, and that is to keep moving. You know, if a student digs in, on, on one particular issue, obviously you need to play that out in class and make sure that, that you're not running away from controversy. We want to do the opposite of that, but also I think having several different topics and moving ahead, so that you're looking at things from different angles, give students a chance to get out of any corners that they might've painted themselves into. And a lot of the times students would like to get out of that corner
00;34;26;08 if you, um, if you give them a chance. And so finding ways to, to change the subject to related topics so that the important stuff is still on the table, but they're not quite as pin down, I think could be very, very helpful.
00;34;40;38 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. Al, I want to come to you about another topic that's going to be important this fall, that the George Floyd murder, um, Carlton is only 40 miles from, from Minneapolis and the, the site of the murder. And how are you and other Carlton faculty getting ready to talk about that in, in classrooms or outside of classrooms this fall?
00;35;05;19 [Alfred Montero]: Well, we barely had a chance to catch our breath, um, with everything that's happened, um, in our area, um, the murder occurred at the tail end of our spring trimester and students had to go home and I know that many students wanted to stay and wanted to go up to the cities and join the protest. Um, so there is a sense of a conversation that we've never had at the appropriate time. There is a building sense
00;35;38;01 over
00;35;38;17 [Alfred Montero]: The summer that, uh, our students are going to want to engage in that conversation extensively. Um, and at the same time, we're worried about public health, uh, implications and orange gatherings on a, on a campus that is relatively small, uh, in a rural area with a small community in Northfield of only 20,000 people. So we have to balance the public health concerns with the real, um, sort of intellectual and
00;36;12;16 personal, uh, concerns of our students who badly want to engage in these sorts of conversations. So over the summer, we have been working, uh, various groups on campus have been working on anti-racism, uh, not only training staff and faculty and preparing for an institution wide anti-racist program. Um, but one that, that contains pedagogical aspects that we can maybe fit into, uh, theories courses and departments, and make
00;36;41;37 them a more permanent aspect of the curriculum at Carlton. So it's a conversation that's here to stay. Um, the, the real question of course in my mind is it's always sustainability. Can we sustain that conversation, um, once, uh, sort of the memory, unfortunately, the memory of George boy's murder will weaken over time, just as the memory of Rodney King's beating a week and over time and didn't need to in the long term, the
00;37;10;48 kind of, uh, uh, discussion that we're having right now. Um, so the hope is that we can carry it forward.
00;37;20;28 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: And, uh, you know, others thinking, looking ahead to the, uh, election, eh, conversations in the classroom that the George Floyd protests, you know, what are ways that we can talk about this, uh, fruitfully in, uh, in our classrooms with students
00;37;43;37 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Libby, maybe what are the, I mean, one of the things that you had shared, uh, in your was the, the five minute rule, um, having people take on a particular perspective, can you tell us about that?
00;37;57;14 [Libby Roderick]: Sure. I also want to, you know, I am on the board for the difficult dialogues national resource center, which we founded a number of years ago to keep these things going. And so I want to also mention something many of you have heard about called intergroup relations work. Um, it is, it is again, an ongoing dialogue process that teaches students to keep dialogues going, how to facilitate dialogues, uh, particularly between groups that have been historically at odds with one another. And certainly systemic racism is, uh, at the heart of a lot of that work. So if you're not familiar with that model, they can be
00;38;28;52 supportive of you. The five minute rule is very much along the lines of what Al was talking about earlier. A lot of the, that come from the Work that I do with faculty have to do with recognizing that faculty's time is very pressured and that many faculty won't engage in a lot of difficult dialogues. If they think it's going to sort of take over their class or derail those syllabus that they had planned for the 16 weeks, that they have students and so forth. And so the five minute rule is a very condensed strategy, um, that essentially creates a debate in a classroom without
00;38;58;37 having to have a vast amount of time involved and a works like this, where you're in any group of people, you can teach your students that they can do this with you, or you can reserve the right to yourself. If there is, it's essentially what you're doing. If there is a viewpoint that is being dismissed or is ignored or doesn't show up at all, um, somebody is able to call for anybody is able to call for the five minute rule on for five minutes, everyone in the class, um, engages with that position from a
00;39;24;51 standpoint of being affirmative of it, whether they agree with it or not.
00;39;28;41 [Libby Roderick]: And so, you know, if the, if the position is something to do with Confederate monuments, you know, and that they should all be torn down for five minutes, you might entertain the viewpoint that they should remain in place because they remind us of our history and so forth and so on. And so there's a series of questions that students are invited to engage with or faculty as it happens in my case. Um, and for five minutes, people speak supportively about that viewpoint. If they cannot speak supportively, they're invited to witness. And I always make the joke that after five minutes, you're invited to return to your previous biases. So don't worry. Um, but, uh, but it has the effect of really
00;40;02;15 surfacing these positions and viewpoints, um, or that exist in our world, whether they exist in our classroom or not. Um, and letting people really begin to wrestle with the legitimacy of viewpoints that they have never even considered because they're so certain all of us have our own truth, right? And throw in a fairly short period of time, you can bust open the conversation. As Al mentioned, you don't have to identify it's your viewpoint, but if it happened to be your viewpoint and you were in the
00;40;28;49 minority of viewpoint in that classroom, suddenly it's gotten some airtime. So it's, it's a really, really helpful kind of a way of engaging.
00;40;37;11 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Well, thank you. Hey, now we're going to turn to a questions from our audience. We're gonna start with a question from, uh, from Maggie King here. Um, and, and this one is, is to you Libby first, you know, it will bring in others. I know a Al is in a more rural campus. How do we ensure that rural students and students without consistent access to the internet are not left behind during a period of online education?
00;41;01;46 [Libby Roderick]: Yeah, thanks for that. Uh, as you may know, in Alaska almost everybody's a rural student, except for, you know, we have one urban center really, of any note. Um, so we've been putting a lot of attention on this. Um, there's no quick answer because economic inequities are pretty profound. Um, but we did get some cares money. We've been funneling all the money we've gotten from the fed into, um, helping students in those kinds of situations. And, um, trying to figure out assignments that we can give to people that don't
00;41;31;56 require a lot of, or that they, that they can access. Of course, at any point, doing asynchronous online, um, assignments and so forth. Um, but it is an ongoing challenge that we haven't completely solved. Um, and I guess I'm not being particularly helpful with that, except that I I'm with you in that we're in that struggle as we speak at our campus and an inordinate amount of resources being given to trying to help those students.
00;42;02;32 [Alfred Montero]: One other response to that. And this is an ongoing question also with our hybrid model in the fall is that we had students on campus in the spring. We, we, there were some students that petition to stay. So putting aside international students that could not go home because home was not safe for them. Uh, and, and they were not going to be productive students at home. So we've identified, um, the vast majority of those students for the fall. And those students will be in the group of
00;42;32;36 students that we will have on campus. We can, we can have up to 85% of our normal student body on campus in the fall.
00;42;41;14 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah,
00;42;42;13 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: I think we're going to have to be extraordinarily flexible.
00;42;45;58 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Go ahead, Charlie.
00;42;48;22 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: I just think we're going to have to be extraordinarily flexible. I think we can, that, that all kinds of students, whether it's rural students or students who are, um, uh, you know, coming from low income situations or students who just don't have a quiet place at home to work, um, because, uh, perhaps there's just a complicated family situation. Um, I think we're going to have to Telegraph to students early on that we want to work with them. And if they find themselves in those
00;43;21;21 difficult circumstances that we're going to find accommodations. Um, and, and so I'm, I love all of these ideas and I think they're really important. Um, I think that the, the problems and the challenges that students are going to be bringing, um, are, are probably as particular as, as they are. And it's every teacher, every instructor is going to have to decide how flexible they're willing to be. Um, I think we're probably going to have to
00;43;48;42 be extraordinarily flexible.
00;43;51;17 [Libby Roderick]: Yeah, can I just jump in and say my, my campus, we did establish and, and many campuses are, I think, uh, some kind of a institutional position that is dedicated to student success specifically recognizing the inequities in our student bodies, right. In that certain groups of people, certain groups of students tend to do better than others because they have the cultural capital that, um, coming in. And so we did also reach out literally with surveys, with texts, with all kinds of mechanisms, to every single student, um, to get information about their
00;44;23;46 circumstances. We had a survey that asks, do you have access to the internet? What is your computer situation? Do you have a laptop? Can you make it to our if necessary?
00;44;32;30 [Libby Roderick]: And so actually making that kind of, um, contact and with the, with the parallel, with difficult dialogues, you know, one of the things I suggest if you're going to be engaging in difficult dialogues and you probably are, whether you plan to or not right, is to have some kind of, um, formative, formative feedback cycle going on at all times, right. Where students can give you feedback, whether it's anonymous or whether it's not anonymous on how they're doing, how they're doing with the dialogue. You know, you could have structured questions that you have them fill out. So you keep your hand on the pulse of what's going on for them,
00;45;04;10 particularly now that it's remote. And particularly if you're in a difficult dialogue, but particularly with these issues, like finding out before things get going, as you mentioned, Charlie, you know, um, do you have difficulties accessing the internet before we even start this class? So I know who I need to reach for.
00;45;23;45 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. I mean, I think that those are the kinds of things that let faculty not just feel like they're ready for when difficult dialogues come up, but they can actually proactively introduce topics that are very important for, for the country, for their, for their subject area and feel like, um, they're, they're reaching out to their students to have those really important conversations. Uh, our next question is from, uh, Florida Atlantic, Bret Danilowicz um, some faculty steer class
00;45;56;16 conversations to certain ideological outcomes, to an extreme, as faculty are encouraged to have difficult dialogues. How can we spot or correct in remote teaching? That's a tough one. Uh, Al you're the, you're the Dean. I'll direct that one to you
00;46;16;42 [Alfred Montero]: Well part of my job, a little part of my job is I, I am the person in the Dean's office that precedes student complaints about faculty. And there are a few, you know, over the year, uh, over the course of any academic year, there were a few, and sometimes it's of this nature, uh, the, the, the student and the professor disagree, and the student believes that the professor is imposing, uh, their worldview in the class, um, that usually leads to a conversation between me and the students to get
00;46;47;57 a better sense of what's going on. Sometimes it's the student's view that, that, that, that also needs a little bit of massaging and debate. Um, but, um, it, it sometimes will lead to a conversation between me and the chair, um, and how cannot at departmental level respecting academic freedom of the, of the faculty. There might be a broader discussion among colleagues about the importance of tolerance and diversification of worldviews in the
00;47;13;37 class. So it's a very indirect and respectful approach,
00;47;20;20 [Libby Roderick]: And I really encourage, Oh, I'm sorry.
00;47;23;00 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah, please. Libby, please.
00;47;25;04 [Libby Roderick]: Okay. I think, um, I really encourage, um, faculty to have these conversations amongst themselves. I mean, again, that's my that's my constituency, right. Is working with faculty and there are definitely faculty who have the opinion that you should keep your, your own viewpoint out of the classroom entirely and foster, you know, the independent thinking of your students, which is a totally legitimate view. Um, in, in the book that I mentioned, there is our faculty who argue the opposite, that they should actually put their viewpoint out very strongly. And if they do that, though, they are required then to bolster massively
00;47;57;34 the confidence of their students to challenge them right. To make it really, really clear. Your grade has nothing to do with whether you disagree with me or not. It's going to be based on the following rubric.
00;48;08;22 [Libby Roderick]: So it's really clear what that basis is. So there won't be a grade dispute, right. You know, they have to work extra hard to ensure that the students who already sometimes are struggling with their voice, right. Don't feel silenced.
00;48;21;43 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: And it is wonderful. I think most faculty do that most of the time, UNC chapel Hill research has released a study early this spring that show that, uh, even a majority of liberals, Democrats and moderate said that their faculty members welcomed a range of viewpoints, even, even when students had a sense of what the faculty member's viewpoint was. But it's, it's something that can be a, not every once in a while, not
00;48;50;08 uniformly the case. Charlie went and jumped in here. Uh, I think Samantha wanted to jump in first if that's okay. Jackie and I can.
00;49;01;52 [Samantha Hedges]: Okay. Thank you. Um, I guess I fall in the former camp, I guess, of keeping viewpoint out of the classroom, as far as the instructors concerned. Although I do like to play devil's advocate occasionally. Um, but I think this is a really good opportunity to kind of push for more student driven, um, uh, courses, um, being online. I mean, I loved having group discussions with my students where I was absent. So I really got to hear how they, um, kind of were
00;49;33;06 grappling with ideas and also got to watch them do that without having to worry about an instructor, um, being in the room and they did it really well. There was never any controversy, um, that was observable at least in the video. So I think, like trying to get faculty to embrace the idea that this is a great opportunity for more, um, student led courses and dialogues, while also keeping their present their presence, very visible, um, you know, making sure students know that they are around if they need
00;50;05;58 them, that they are, you know, they're online, they're engaging. You just may not always see them all the time. So maybe even posting videos occasionally with something I did to give like feedback via video instead of just typing. So they knew I was there for them, but that they,
00;50;21;01 [Samantha Hedges]: In a lot of ways we're in control of the class.
00;50;24;17 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. I want to come back to how this is a moment of opportunity too, but Charlie First, please chime in. Yeah.
00;50;31;17 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: Very quickly. But I think that, um, this issue of, of, um, how to, uh, in involved get involved if, uh, if somebody is kind of, it's a class is going off the rails, or if a faculty member is doing something that you'd like to get feedback on. I think another topic that this opens up is this is a, the question of classroom observation during, um, during the pandemic, um, because, uh, at Mercer and many other places, uh, classroom observations are very important part of, of the system, both
00;51;01;59 of faculty development, but also of just programmatic consistency and community. You know, it's not all retributive, it's developmental to how do we support each other? Um, what can we learn from each other as teachers? And that's going to be much more difficult, um, while we're doing social distancing, um, for face to face. And I think we have to be creative about how we're going to do it online. Um, and so, uh, I, I, I'm thinking about that right now as a part of the programs that I'm a part of, um, does this mean that we sign into each
00;51;33;12 other's courses, the online courses that we become parts of the conversation, can we on discussion boards, et cetera? Can we do that without shifting the dynamic in, in difficult ways? Um, this is a set of questions that I haven't, I don't have a clear sense of, but I have, I do have a clear sense that that it's important for us to face, um, right away, you know, how can we be engaged with each other? How can our, our hybrid courses in our online courses not be isolating, um, for lots of reasons,
00;52;04;52 quality control is just one actually small one. Um, but, but that's a danger that I think we have to face is, is how not to be isolated, how to continue to be a community of learning, um, even if we're hybridized or online.
00;52;20;04 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. Cause there's a, there's like a campus wide community, a student community in a, and a faculty community too. And that faculty community is so important to supporting, uh, those, those other communities. I want to come back to something Samantha said about, you know, opportunities, you know, we're, we've all had this, uh, this learning occasion forced on us about online instruction and different ways of teaching. And I've heard from some faculty about how it's creating new opportunities from them or things that they're gonna keep doing in the
00;52;51;23 future. Uh, when one opportunity a faculty member whose campus is two hours from a major report, um, tell me about how wonderful it was that when normally it was so hard to get some money to come as a guest, uh, to bring a different viewpoint to the classroom or via guest expert or public figure, um, getting somebody to zoom in for four 45 minutes or an hour, uh, was creating new opportunities, uh, for, you know, all kinds of
00;53;20;51 conversations across difference. But what, what are the opportunities from this moment And what are the, what are the things that we're learning about teaching and about student learning, um, that we're going to take, uh, you know, whenever it is, uh, that we return to, uh, some, some kind of new Normal,
00;53;44;51 [Alfred Montero]: Just very quickly, I think, and not, it's not too obvious the point, I think we're a lot more aware of the material differences among our students. There are some students that feel a sense of alienation because they are not part of the majority culture in a predominantly white institution. And the shift to online and hybrid has really accentuated that even more so we're, we're more aware of that. We're more aware of class differences, first generation students, and how we use
00;54;15;59 that awareness going forward to make our pedagogies more sensitive to those, to those differences, to create more equitable ways of accessing our course content. I think that is a very positive development, uh, coming out of all of this,
00;54;34;11 [Libby Roderick]: I would agree, I think flexibility in assignments and so forth has been part of creating inclusive learning environments for a long time, letting people demonstrate mastery in a whole range of ways, giving them opportunities to work in their community and then come back and report in the classroom, tying in what they already know to what we're already doing. We have more opportunities to do that as you, as you just mentioned, maybe another one is that, you know, we have, I think generally agreed that, um, sort of a flipped classroom has some real advantages where
00;55;06;49 people look at, you know, a lecture for a little while, but then when they're actually with the faculty member with all that expertise, they spend the time in actively applying, uh, what they learned in the lecture or the outside readings to real life problems. Um, I mean, as we go forward, we have a lot of problems. I mean, I think we're starting to realize, realize that the nation's, uh, not at its best, you know, peak state right now. So turn around and you find a problem, a pretty gnarly problem. And we really need to be training
00;55;35;59 students to take our expertise that we bring in a higher ed context and apply it to some very wicked problems. And so if we use that opportunity to, you know, give the information online, um, you know, in an asynchronous kind of way, and then spend our time with them really coaching them and helping them and mentoring them and having them lead as, uh, as was mentioned earlier, uh, we might be training a more robust set of leaders. I don't.
00;56;03;42 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. And I think that goes back to one of the, The comments Charlie made earlier, but This design, you know, normally, uh, when, when is teaching over say 14 weeks Class meets every Tuesday and Thursday, you just have a list most of the 28 readings that you're going to do. And now, um, uh, we, the opportunity to be really intentional about thinking about what goes into in the synchronous face to face and what has to be face to face as much as we can. And w what is fruitfully discussed in, in a asynchronous discussion format? And I know,
00;56;38;32 uh, both Charlie and Samantha, you've really thought about that. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about that, that element of the syllabus design, that faculty are really engaged with that, you know, as we're about five weeks or six weeks out from the start of the semester, Charlie, what do you think with your syllabus?
00;56;59;35 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: Well, one thing we, I mean this just this hour that we've had together, we've had dozens of good ideas about what could go into syllabus. I do think being explicit in the syllabus is more important now than ever and incentivizing. Um, students, you know, we sometimes are frustrated that our students are our grade driven, but we know they are. And once you know that you can work with that knowledge. And so if you incentivize the kind of activities in your course that you think are going to be important to their learning, um, you're, you're running with the
00;57;30;24 river instead of, instead of against it. So building into the syllabus incentives for the kinds of activities that you think are most important, um, and doing that perhaps more explicitly than if you were teaching face to face, I think is important that the one other thing I would add is I really think that faculty members, teachers need to be very in touch with the power. They have to, um, put together either a completely unsustainable plan for their class in their syllabus, or to be kind to themselves and
00;58;02;37 their students. We're going into a semester where all of us are probably more stressed than usual, where our students are likely to be more stressed than usual and where we're being asked to do a lot of things that we haven't done before.
00;58;14;06 [Charlotte C.S. Thomas]: If, if we just tack on the new things to the syllabus but retain all of the things that we've all we've already done. We're, we're, it's not going to work out well, then bad things will happen. We're going to crash and burn. Uh, and so, uh, we need to build syllabus that acknowledged that if you're adding new things, those things need to be offset. Um, and if you're going to err in the direction, I would say err in the direction of caution and conservatism rather than ambition in, in your syllabus this semester.
00;58;45;26 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Well, I think a call for kindness is a, is a perfect note on which for us to end. And so I do want to thank you for, uh, uh, Libby, Samantha, Charlie, and Al so much for sharing your expertise with us today and our, our audience for joining us today and your questions and comments and our sincere best wishes from the Bipartisan Policy Center for everyone who's on a college or university campus, uh, getting ready for what is sure to be a most challenging fall semester. So our, our very best.
00;59;20;04 Would like to ask you to please join us next Friday at noon Eastern for the second, and this webinar series Beyond the Classroom: Campus Life during COVID-19, we'll be talking about student life, registered student organizations and getting students ready to discuss issues of national importance as we get ready for the election. And we'd like you to ask you please, to subscribe to our BPC YouTube channel, and to get to know more about our work with the campus free
00;59;46;01 expression project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, by looking at our website bipartisanpolicy.org and subscribing to our newsletters. So want to say thanks very much to all and good day. Good weekend. Bye now. Thanks.
Video Transcript
00;00;03;21 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Hello, I'm Jackie Pfeffer Merrell director of the Bipartisan Policy Center program on Campus Free Expression. I like to welcome you to the second of our two part webinars series campus free expression during COVID-19 today's webinar is beyond the classroom student life during COVID-19. The Bipartisan Policy Center is a Washington DC think tank that promote security and opportunity for American families by bringing together the best ideas from both parties and the Bipartisan Policy Center’s campus free expression project promotes policies and
00;00;35;27 programs of college campuses that foster a safe and welcoming environment for a robust intellectual exchange, especially during an election year, colleges and universities have a special role in introducing students to a broad range of issues, ideas, teaching them the values of mutual respect and principled disagreement, and helping them to learn about the ways in which a principled respectful conversation can serve our democracy. Well, I like briefly to introduce our four distinguished panelists today.
00;01;05;05 Carol Sumner is Texas Tech, uh, Vice President of Division of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer. Elizabeth Matto is associate research professor and director of the Center for Youth Political Participation at the Eagleton Institute of politics at Rutgers university. Aaliyah McLean is a brand new, uh, alumni of, uh, James Madison University and its immediate past
00;01;34;26 president of the student government association. She's returning to campus this fall to be a, Woodson Martin Democracy Fellow at James Madison University Center for Civic Engagement. I want to say congratulations on graduating during this most difficult spring. And Vijay Pendakur is the Robert W and Elizabeth C Staley Dean of students at Cornell University. So thank you all for coming. Their full bios and Twitter handles are on our event
00;02;01;11 webpage and for our audience, I'd like to say a little bit about our run, our show for the next 40 minutes.
00;02;06;30 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: We five will have a moderated discussion about strategies for fostering a robust student life during this most difficult upcoming semester college. Isn't about just what goes on in the classroom. Instead of college is an opportunity for students to meet students and peers who come from communities very different from their own to be introduced to new ideas and viewpoints, and to develop the skills of respectful citizenship and to be an independent thinker and lifelong learner. And for our audience, there's going to be lots of opportunities for participation too. You can pose your comments about our conversation or
00;02;38;26 your questions at any time on Twitter using the hashtag BPC live or posting them in a YouTube or Facebook chat. And so now to our conversation, uh, Carol, I'm going to start with you. So Texas tech, uh, you're planning On coming back to a, uh, a hybrid campus. I just want to ask you to start off. What did you observe about student life, uh, when you went remote and what are your apprehensions and hopes for student life this fall?
00;03;05;26 [Carol A. Sumner]: Certainly. Well, thank you for having me. It's a joy to be a part of this conversation we saw, you know, with the immediate kind of change from spring break students having to leave campus. Um, there were a number of things that we had hardly put together, particularly looking at an online and distance education experience for students who had just weeks before been in classroom environments. And so we didn't have a lot of time, but fortunately for tech, we have an e-learning team that is particularly dedicated to our online education. So we were able to make many transitions
00;03;39;19 with their help systems already being in place.
00;03;42;17 [Carol A. Sumner]: But as we're starting to look at the shift in the student environment, there was a lot of transition that was hurried. Our students didn't get to celebrate some of the traditions that they'd experienced. We as a campus, we're in the midst of resolving some issues that we'd had particular to free speech, um, and race incidents, um, that had happened, uh, via social media. So we were in the midst of a lot of things and just had to look at ways that we could address them looking forward to the fall. We're, uh, still identifying how we're going to have
00;04;12;10 our students come back to campus and feel that sense of community. We are a red Raider family. We're very excited about that, but we've had more time to prepare. Um, there has certainly been an emphasis on maintaining as best as we're able and in person experience. So we have something called the red Raider commitment, a series of videos that have come out every week. Uh, we're also looking at orientation experiences. Um, we've implemented a new training to look at free speech and diversity of opinions, uh, through something called voices of change.
00;04;43;09 So some steps. we’re certainly excited.
00;04;47;02 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Great. Well, I want to hear more about, uh, those steps that I am going to come back to them, but Aaliyah, I live, I like to come back to you to you. So, uh, James Madison university is planning to return in person, and I know that last week you did a virtual orientation for incoming students to introduce them to the values of, of the community. And you had three panels with, with you, a student leader and a Harrisonburg community member. So just love to hear about, uh, those events.
00;05;16;11 [Aaliyah McLean]: Yeah, definitely. Um, so as you all may have known, may know a JMU, our orientation is so, um, we take really pride in it. So really our orientation, um, occurs throughout the entire summer. So students normally, um, pre COVID last year, et cetera, would come to campus for a day. We bring board, um, and this, they have a personalized kind of mentor Orientation, peer advisor. We call them OPA's and they walk them through the day. I helped them register for classes, kind of that introduction to JMU. Um, and then they come back August normally, and we have a week called 1787,
00;05;49;06 where it's a week before classes start where they're really just involved in getting to know the community campus and things like that. And so this year not being able to do those things and not being able to have springboard. Um, it was really awesome that JMU really found ways to integrate orientation to online and new ways to meet new students and really connect with them. So they still feel that sense of community before they even get to JMU. Um, and so this year we were so excited to partner up with the orientation office and, um, the community service learning office
00;06;15;27 and do a program about, um, community building through civic learning and community engagement. And so really our main goal was to help students identify their passions. Um, what are they interested in? What do they want to do, um, throughout their time at JMU or what have they done in high school and how can we help them implement that? And the idea is at the end of the month to register them to vote and to, for them to understand our civic agency and that civic motivation, and knowing that here's some, a new community for them. Um, but you still belong here and your ideas matter. And so it was a
00;06;45;08 really interesting thing. So we, um, had the mayor on one of our panels, different nonprofit leaders, um, and just student leaders. I'm involved in different things on campus, like Blackston Alliance, the student government association, and even I'm a leadership center, really helping students understand that there is not one definition and there is not one sense of passion. You have to have to be a change agent. So our main goal, we just walked through a presentation of saying, what are you interested in? Really identify your passions, know that motivation, where that comes from that,
00;07;15;01 why I, the how and the now what can you do to really make these changes and how can you put that action piece? And so we made like a civic action plan with them and really just gave them foundational pieces. So they can really make these changes as their time goes on at JMU.
00;07;31;04 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Thanks. I mean, there are going to ask about that too. Vijay, I'd like to come to you, So I'm just asking, Cornell's planning on coming back in person, you know, what did you see in the spring and what are you anticipating in concerned about going into the fall Okay,
00;07;46;30 [ Vijay Pendakur]: Sure thing, you know, as Carol and Aaliyah I've already spoken to the spring was, um, you know, we've used the word a lot unprecedented, but having to empty a campus because of the need to de densify presented a lot of new challenges and opportunities. And one of the, um, one of the things that we did that I think worked really well in this space. I mean, there was a lot of lessons learned through things not working, but one of the things that really worked was to, um, very quickly stand up and exemptions process. So as we, we needed to get as many people off the campus and out of the campus as possible, but we also knew that
00;08;19;12 many of our students have vulnerabilities, um, or complex home circumstances that make it so that going home really would have been pretty deleterious either to their health or their safety. So we created an exceptions process with a committee review where people could apply to say, I know you need to empty the campus, but I have special circumstances. I can't go home. Um, and we staff that committee with folks from the multicultural and inclusion support areas, plus also some folks
00;08;46;07 from Cornell health services, and then also some people from the international, um, services area, because oftentimes some of our international students were saying we really can't go back. Um, and so we brought some of the specialty offices to bear on the review of the exceptions appeals process, and we're able to actually retain, um, uh, a couple of hundred students who really had very difficult life circumstances within our residence halls, even though the goal was to get the campus pretty much emptied. And I think that that strikes a balance between, um,
00;09;15;11 the, the exigency of trying to manage a pandemic, but also the reality that we have to be a community of care. And, um, I think in a nuanced way around the vulnerabilities that people have, um, there are so many other things that I know will come up over the course of the conversation. So I'll, I'll wait until we get into some more questions.
00;09;33;22 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Alright. I w I do want to ask about looking ahead to the fall, even though you're bringing people back, you're putting together a as a key piece of virtual engagement guide with, um, with resources for students, uh, organizations, and just for students in general, to be engaged with one another outside of the classroom. So can you just tell us, uh, I know that was a key piece, what, what, isn't a guide and maybe just share one or two, um, resources that are available
00;10;02;05 [ Vijay Pendakur]: Sure thing. Um, and the great thing about the guide being digital is that anybody who's watching this webinar can easily access it. So, um, we actually built the, um, a guide called, um, uh, virtual, uh, co-curricular programming resources in the spring, because as we were emptying the campus, we were thinking about the reality that, um, we still needed to find ways to engage our students. And the only way we're going to be able to do that is through a variety of virtual platforms. So we quickly, uh, put together two different kinds of guides. One, we call
00;10;35;06 the faculty and staff programming toolbox, and, um, there's three kind of, um, bodies of information within the faculty and staff programming toolbox. And this is, this is meant to help faculty and staff put on successful co-curricular virtual programs for their students, right? So it's not about engaging faculty and staff, but rather empowering faculty and staff to, to do right by their students in the virtual space.
00;10;55;30 [ Vijay Pendakur]: And so we've got guides on how to do virtual programming. Well, so the actual techniques of doing virtual programming, um, there's a second set of guides that are actually ideas of the kinds of programs that might be more successful. Um, so that faculty and staff who want to engage their students don't have to start from scratch. And then the third is an exhaustive list of external resources of places. You can go on the web to get a lot information about how to do virtual programming for college students successfully. And we created a parallel, uh, set of chats that are actually the student to student guide. So actually creating
00;11;28;08 information, that's more student friendly to say, if you're a leader on campus, and you want a program for your peers, here's some tips and tricks that can actually make you more successful. Um, and, uh, we, over the summer, we've been building those out, um, and expanding them and actually also modifying them based on what we learned, because as we went through the spring, we learned a lot about virtual programming. And so by the time the students are back in the fall, the, those websites should look pretty different.
00;11;54;06 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Great. I think we all learned a lot about being online that this spring, early summer, as a skill set, that maybe none of us, some of us not, we never really never really have. Elizabeth, I want to come to you about a special set of programs that you're, uh, you know, planning at the Eagleton Institute of politics. You're looking for a special week early in the term, starting with constitution day on September 17th and through September 22nd national voter registration week.
00;12;21;01 And tell, tell us about that activity and, and what you've got planned.
00;12;26;13 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: Well, and I would say, um, you know, much of what we're planning is what we learned this summer, based on what we learned this summer and built a few models, um, throughout the summer, um, on what works and what doesn't. Um, so pretty quickly once, you know, we did need to move remotely. Um, you know, we recognized there were still some unique, uh, challenges needs that our students had. One of them being, uh, we still had a primary, um, to come up in New Jersey. We had originally had a primary scheduled for, um, June. It got
00;12;55;14 pushed back to July, um, and it was going to be almost entirely vote by mail. Um, so helping students understand the changes to the process and the realities of actually completing an application, um, and completing a, a ballot, um, a vote by mail ballot, um, was new to a lot of New Jersey residents, but certainly new to a lot of, um, Rutgers students. So we were able to really test out some tools, um, over the summer with strong student involvement, um, and put together a campaign multimedia campaign called
00;13;29;13 prime for the primaries, um, in which we had students do such things as hold live, Facebook Q and A, um, interviews with election officials. We had students do a, a video that, um, on how to fill out your ballot that we put on tick-tock we got a tick tock account this summer. Um, so much of what we learned this summer, we'll be applying, um, this fall, but certainly as you said, Jackie, that week, um, between
00;13;55;03 constitution day and national voter registration day, we'll be doing a multifaceted effort that will include things such as, you know, traditional book talks, perhaps, um, traditional in that the, uh, not so traditional will be on zoom, but doing book talks, but also really trying to feature our students as much as possible. So what we're hoping to do for constitution day in particular, normally if we were on campus, we'd invite
00;14;20;30 a high-profile speaker and do a lecture that'd open to the campus.
00;14;24;21 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: Instead, we're going to be focusing our on our students and inviting students from all of Rutgers campuses, Newark and Camden, and new Brunswick, um, to, uh, reflect on what, what American democracy means to them and how they fit in American democracy and express that in whatever medium, they choose, whether it's a poem, whether it's, um, an essay, um, but really showcasing them, um, on our website, but then featuring them on our social media platforms.
00;14;54;19 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: I want to thanks very much for that. Elizabeth. I want to come back to you for one of the ways that students have been active. I know the civic engagement center you have planned in the past tent talks a, is ways of getting students to sharing the views and, uh, tell us what a Ted talk is and how they're being reconfigured, uh, for a time of pandemic.
00;15;17;20 [Aaliyah McLean]: Yeah, definitely. Um, so our tent talks are definitely, I feel like our most popular, um, really reach students. And I think it's really because of the idea, especially in higher education, it's so known to programs, um, typically after classes around seven o'clock, six o'clock sometimes and the evening, but I think you have to factor in sometimes obligations that some students have to do. Some have to work. Some may have other obligations at home. They may be commuting. It's just not possible for them to get back to campus. And so if tent talks it's really found a way to meet students, um, at times that are most convenient
00;15;48;19 to them. And so really we'll set up on our kind of most popular location on campus called the quad or the comments. And really well, since we're just walking to classes, maybe go into their cars, you can just see our tent and stop by.
00;15;59;24 [Aaliyah McLean]: So we'll have a big tent out there. Um, and basically we will have, uh, a table I'm also have, I'm a dry erase board and the dry erase board will kind of prompt the question. And really, I say what these questions are, are just those things that people tell you. So, you know, those conversations on the Thanksgiving dinner that, you know, you're told, avoid these things, we can't talk about these things. And our main hope is to talk about these things. We want to make these political conversations, something that you actually do consider. We want to challenge your thoughts on, we also want to you, and so you can learn from other students. And so a way that we kind of get students to come over is
00;16;30;04 we'll have some pizza from a local place that it's really popular in campus called Benny's pizza. So we'll have Benny's there. I'm like, Oh, come get a free lunch, come, come over here. And then we'll say, Hey here, why don't you read this question and write your answer to it? And so one question that we really focus on that we always love to talk about is having thought about your citizens shipped at us today. And that question sounds so simple, but it truly is a real thing. Have you thought about that today? Have you thought about what that encompasses and what that means and what that looks like? And our director talks about this one
00;17;00;09 story that he really admires is a student walked by and said, um, you know, I haven't thought about that. Um, not until this moment and that piece of like, not until this moment for us just sticks out. And like, that is the work that we want to do. We want to really, um, cultivate these ideas and these questions that you may not be thinking about because society has told you to avoid them.
00;17;18;19 [Aaliyah McLean]: And it told you, Oh, we can't talk about that here, but you can't talk about that here. And we can critically learn from each other and we can dive into that. And so then it just brings the opportunity to bring that dialogue together. And so getting that pizza, learning from each other, other students just merging together. And so really, we're still hoping to do that in the fall, um, since we are coming back to campus, but in a very social distanced way, we're trying to think of ways online that we can do pop up like Wednesday conversation. One that we've been doing this summer, but really our hope is to still be there because we'll offer voter registration, absentee ballots and things like that. So
00;17;50;15 in a very social distanced way, we still want to reach those students.
00;17;54;12 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: So it sounds like it would really be physically distance, but not really socially together lot. When you come back to something that you said in the introduction, you mentioned the voices of change program that you have it at Texas tech that really helps get students past the kind of, it kind of cancel culture by committing to listening to people respectfully and being able to say, you know, I hear you, but I disagree. I disagree, but I do hear you. So can you tell us a
00;18;23;00 little bit about what that program is?
00;18;26;13 [Carol A. Sumner]: Sure. Well, it, it was something that we'd started looking at, um, as we're moving to an online, um, orientation experience, uh, we knew in the, in the fall that there was a, an opportunity to explore identity, um, and to talk about diversity, um, through the onboarding of new students, because that's really a critical part of creating a culture. Um, we want the red Raider experience to mean something significant to the
00;18;56;26 students. And so, um, our student affairs team started looking at orientation experiences and then looking at this video, uh, that we could provide to all new students. And so it starts out talking about identity and how we are, um, as individual people, uh, multi-faceted, we are multi identity individuals. And that in that there are these intersections that happen with us and other people. And as much as we, we recognize bias, um,
00;19;30;18 there is, there is a projection that we have of people being a certain kind of way.
00;19;36;13 [Carol A. Sumner]: And we're trying to address that those stereotypes or biases are something we all have, but we have to work to avoid them because when you start recognizing or acknowledging, not avoiding them, like we don't see them, but acknowledging they exist. And then leveraging our awareness of that in the conversations that we have, that we don't have to agree. And still we can differ, um, because as our students are moving into these spaces and as Aliyah shared, we want students to recognize, we
00;20;09;28 can talk about race. We can talk about politics. We can talk about citizenship. We can talk about how some celebrate some holidays and others see those not as holidays, but the reasons behind them. And that there's a transparency in the way that we're sharing this space as a community coming together and being able to dialogue. I had a very, so it wasn't
00;20;37;08 surreal, but it was a very telling experience. I went into a classroom, um, with some of our new students, and I asked them, tell me your, your thoughts about me. I want you to tell me what you assume about me. And there are lots of different things. And I shop at target. I had two kids, I have a business degree. Um, there must have been 20 or 30 different assumptions that the students made about me. One student said he didn't think that I could be in a sorority. So we had to explore, why would that be? He said, because you're not white or a white female. So
00;21;07;06 we talked about that. And, um, and I'm actually the second of a third generation in the same sorority. My ma my mother is college educated and pledged the sorority in 1964. But again, his stereotype of me was based on what he thought, represented Greek life and, and get an, all of the 30, not one student.
00;21;28;24 [Carol A. Sumner]: And I said, there's something glaring, not one student said that I was black or that I was a woman. And when we talked about that, I asked them why not? And they said, because we don't talk about those things and we shouldn't acknowledge them because it's not polite. And so we had a conversation about, I don't, I don't want you to avoid that because the world sees me through my external presentation. And yet I want people to not make assumptions about any of us based on one
00;22;01;16 thing. So back to the voices of change, it is starting our students at a conversation that says, you're going to come into this community where you're going to meet the world. Let's look at how we value what we each bring. And then let's look at how collectively we're contributing to the campus experience by adding to it. That means white students, Brown students, black students, Hispanic students, international students. But we really look across at rural students. We don't want to make assumptions. So
00;22;31;16 that's, that's a part of creating that culture through the onboarding process.
00;22;37;10 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. I do want to come back to those questions of talking about, about race and, you know, coming, looking into the fall, talking about the George Floyd murder. But before I do that, I want to talk about another strategy for, for learning to talk about these difficult conversations and, you know, this, uh, voices have changed part of the freshman orientation. Um, Elizabeth, I want to ask you about a, a one credit course, uh, that, uh, Rutgers offers for, for freshmen,
00;23;06;14 talking, talking politics disagreeing without being disagreeable, but tell us just briefly put the course in how it's being reconfigured for this fall. Sure,
00;23;15;03 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: Sure. So yes, with a colleague, we piloted this course a one credit course for incoming freshmen called talking politics disagreeing without being disagreeable and, and similar to Carol's point, or just to piggyback on what Carol was indicating. Um, the, there are many facets of political and civic engagement. Um, and certainly as a political scientist, I realize or recognize that many of these skills need to be taught. Um, not just things like how to consume news, um, how to find your polling location, but how do we engage in political discussions? And so we
00;23;48;22 created a one credit seminar course for incoming freshmen, um, that really explored, that looked at first of all, sort of the democratic roots of, um, of political discourse, really arguing that, um, it's, if we're going to be a nation that respects and preserves Liberty, which we are, that it's going to be natural, that we're going to have a diversity of viewpoints, and that the system is really set up in such a way to allow the exchange of these
00;24;15;04 viewpoints and more importantly to foster compromise. Um, but again, as Carol referenced, students are uncertain about how to engage in political discussions are uncertain how to approach it respectfully, um, productively, but I'm also finding, especially, um, gen Z in particular, want to talk about politics and certainly this summer and heading into the fall, students want to talk politics, but need guidance. So we use this course as a way to learn the skills, um, practice the skills
00;24;46;23 of, of political discourse, whether it's perspective, taking active, listening, uh, fact checking, checking yourself and checking others, um, and, and watching political practitioners do it well and do it poorly. Um, so we're certainly hoping to, um, to take that into the fall, we will be remote, but trying to take it to an even broader audience. Um, most likely
00;25;11;20 through our, we have a pizza and politics series sounds like something similar at James Madison, um, but an opportunity to bring students together, um, preferably with pizza. So students may need to bring their own pizza, um, but to talk about different topics, but doing it in a productive way. Um, and one last thing I'll mention, so I can not hog the airspace, which is one thing we don't want to be doing is hogging. The airspace is, um, we often begin with an exercise that I highly recommend
00;25;41;00 developed by the Institute for democracy and higher education, um, where we begin our semester by crafting a set of norms or practices for political discussion, um, developed by someone, uh,
00;25;53;29 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: Nancy Thomas, who's a recognized national scholar on this topic, but really beginning as a pedagogical exercise, what are some norms and practices of, of productive, respectful, but honest and candid discussion. And it's a way to explore what they are, but also to hold ourselves accountable throughout a semester. So I'm happy to talk more about that throughout the discussion and, um, and provide the URL to cause it's a fantastic resource that we use extensively.
00;26;22;08 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. And it, and in fact, I, Nancy Thomas is, uh, on our constitution of events here at BPC. And she'll be talking about, um, student practices and engage in best practices for getting students in politics and our, our constitution day webinar here. Um, right. I want to talk a little bit more about these questions of, uh, generation Z students and, uh, you know, they're, you know, of course not all college students are traditional 18 to 22 year old. Um, you know, what we, what we used to think of as the typical college
00;26;52;07 student, isn't, isn't so much the typical college student anymore, but there has been a generational change. Um, the higher education research Institute at UCLA, and it's a new, uh, just released report on the American freshmen 2019, looking at last year's freshmen, uh, noted that habits of minds, such as asking questions in class has gone down. Jean Twenge and her colleagues at San Diego state university have looked at online use by a
00;27;22;16 generations ed students to find they spent an hour less per person in person interactions and those a generation ago. So that they're just less practiced at having certain kinds of conversations, both, both agreeable ones and disagreeable ones. And I'm just thinking, what are the other kinds of strategies that we can use for matriculating students and students who are coming onto campus as freshmen in a most unusual time to really set
00;27;52;29 them up for success in this unusual year. And Aaliyah, I understand you're going to be in a first-year dorm is a resident advisor. So I'm going to come back to others too, but we're going to start with you. What are you doing for these efforts, your students this year?
00;28;09;20 [Aaliyah McLean]: Yes, I'm so excited about this as well. Um, so JMU has a program called Falcon in Residence and, um, it's where faculty can live in a residence hall. And so I'm here now. You won't even tell, I'm in a residence hall and you get an apartment, but you serve as just someone that students can go to, um, for just different types of guidance, um, simply in their school, what they're doing and what they're learning about. And so for me, it's interesting because, um, I am a faculty member, but most of the FIR's are in academia. So they're professors in a certain department, but for me, I'm, you know, I'm a civic engagement. And so one
00;28;42;03 of my main goals this year with my role as a Woodson Martin democracy fellow, is let's talk about, um, different refugee communities. And let's talk about, um, just immigration policies and, um, just our, the United States in Virginia and Harrisonburg particularly is one of the largest refugee resettlement populations here. So let's talk about that. And so I just believe, um, in order to really help students feel invested to help them feel like they can trust you and feel safe is to create that level of vulnerability. And so I love Dr. Brene
00;29;11;08 Brown, if any of you all have looked at her work, but really the foundation is vulnerability. And so my key in the programs that I'll be doing this semester, or is really creating that foundation. So they feel safe. They feel heard, they know that their experience is valid, even if it's different from someone next to them, because regardless, we all have different experiences in our life and different backgrounds that make a different complex view and perception. And so my goal is to do different surrounds circles about this, helping them learn their passions, what
00;29;37;19 they're really engaged about experiences in their life have they had, and how can they use that for their purpose and how can they serve others with that.
00;29;44;25 [Aaliyah McLean]: And then also then connecting it to an alternative break, which is a service-learning trip where you go to another B and you learn a different social issue. And so one of my main goals this year is to do alternative break I'm on immigration. And so I'm going somewhere and learning about this and taking a group of students on with us and doing this with them. And so you're able to really see that reflection, that critical thinking, um, in that, and in that community. And so that is really the main goal. I just feel like help students feel safe and that they can trust you and they can talk about you. And, and when they do open
00;30;15;23 up about their beliefs and opinions, they're not wrong, um, that they understand that you're challenging them and you're going with them, but they, they feel that safety. And so I'm really excited cause I feel like first years they graduated during our pandemic, which I can relate to. I can truly relate to what it feels like to just up and just next week, you're online, you know, and you're, you're done and your graduation is like, where's the graduation. And so honestly, um, I think with that, that creates that they can relate and they can, um, I feel like have a different type of relationship with me
00;30;43;26 because I have similar experiences. Um, and I understand what that's like, and I think we're in a community and we're excited that always just tells you move on and get over it. But this is a traumatic experience that we have to validate. Um, and that's going to take their experiences and their decisions and, and for them to feel like that. And so I'm really excited about all of those things. Um, just all in one, but I think it's more of a say in these conversations that there's so many levels and there's so many layers that we have to consider as we start diving in and talking about
00;31;12;18 different political discussions and things like that.
00;31;15;24 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Vijay, let me ask you what you're thinking about for a, especially for freshmen coming in and helping them be introduced to collegiate life, It's mostly unusual time.
00;31;27;03 [ Vijay Pendakur]: Sure. Uh, I'll be, um, I'll mention a couple of things. Cause I actually was very interested in some of the points Carol and Elizabeth were making about, um, how we prepare people to have conversations across difference and conversations about politics. Um, you know, I'm familiar with, uh, Jean Twitter's work out of San Diego state university and some of the alarming trend lines on gen Z in terms of being overly formed in the digital space and being very uncomfortable with in person engagement and I think a significant growth area for higher education to be diplomatic about it or to say an area that we're not really
00;32;00;01 doing good work in right now is actually operationalizing the skill sets of talking about diversity. We've I think we've overemphasized the watch of diversity and under-emphasized the how of diversity. So when I'm a college student, I can take course after course after course, uh, on, um, you know, various, uh, racial histories on urban sociology on, um, you know,
00;32;22;30 anthropology of religion, all of that is wonderful, right? Because it builds up my, the complexity of my thinking and my, uh, my, my vocabulary, my, my sense of what the literature is. But then you put these really educated students in a room to have a conversation about something that, um, invokes some passions and we all have seen it happen before. Um, and it falls apart pretty quickly. And that's because I think we've, under-emphasized the secondary component here, which is actually the skill set of being able to craft arguments while keeping our cool, to be able to listen to someone who's saying something that makes us upset and not lose
00;32;56;27 our ability to hear them, and that actually can be taught. And so one of the ways that Cornell is trying to get involved in this skills-based diversity education movement is to, um, really heavily invest in the intergroup dialogue project. And intergroup dialogue model was, is a model of actually having dialogue across difference that was created at the university of Michigan.
00;33;16;15 [ Vijay Pendakur]: It's one of the only empirically researched and validated diversity education platforms that seems to prove change over time. Um, and so we've, we've really put a lot of resources in our IDP model and for incoming freshmen, every first-year student, we started this a couple of years ago. Every first-year student gets a three hour dialogue training workshop as part of orientation. And that's not a silver bullet. We all know that learning is recursive and iterative. And so, you know, that's a first introduction and there has to be a lot after that to scaffold that towards real change. But part of what we do during
00;33;48;16 orientation is actually to say dialogue skills are this important to our community. That we're going to take three hours out of your orientation and have every single friend go through this in terms of pivoting into this fall with the pandemic. Um, there's a lot of loss and I really want to respect what Aaliyah said about trauma, right? We gotta recognize that there's a breathing process to go through, to let go of the North's. I do want to highlight that there are actually some things that are happening that are interesting and possible in the space that weren't possible before. So as we've moved through
00;34;16;14 orientation into fully virtual format, we're actually building out a parent and family orientation sequence that was never possible before at Cornell because we just didn't have the operational and logistical bandwidth. But now that everybody's in their own homes, watching these things online, we can actually create a set of engagement opportunities, reading videos, webinars that are parent and family facing. And we've desperately needed that for a long time because family is, you know, all the student success data shows that when families are prepared to be part of the success
00;34;43;27 package, then the students do better. And so, you know, there's an equity question. If we're not engaging families, how do we expect first generation and low income college students to be able to compete with their more privileged peers? So I think there's some exciting innovations possible as well on this pivot to the fully virtual orientation and onboarding sequence. Yeah.
00;35;00;28 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah, it sounds terrific. And the years of Michigan materials are wonderful resources. I want to ask you a question and maybe I'll, I'll set this up with some data and, and Carol, maybe I'll, I'll start with you. So it's great to have these conversations where people get skills about talking across difference, but we do know that there are sometimes students and in people off campus too, we'll say that that viewpoint is just too offensive, or I disagree to strongly, uh, to engage with that. And at UNC research researchers, uh, earlier this year and
00;35;33;13 before the pandemic released a survey of UNC students and kudos to them for, for doing this research at UNC, that found that broad majority of both liberal and conservative and moderate students said that they wanted more opportunities to hear from those, with whom they disagreed and who had different ideas. But there was a significant minority that really held a different view. A quarter of students said that they would, uh, interrupt or try to block a
00;36;03;03 student with our speaker with whom they strongly disagreed. Uh, 14% of conservative students said the campus would be better without liberal students. And 22% of liberals said this campus would be better without conservative students. It's really aye. Aye, aye, aye, deep and willingness to engage certain points of views among this minority, but sizable minority of students. And I think, um, for, for, if one's out in a broader
00;36;29;12 community, there isn't really an obligation to listen to those with whom you disagree, but a college and a liberal arts education is really about learning to have conversations and engage viewpoints and ideas that you hadn't thought of or didn't agree with. And I'm wondering what are the ways in which we can equip our students when they're on a quad or in a dorm. Cause when, or when they're in a classroom, a faculty members there to be the devil's advocate or to bolster a student who's in a minority position
00;37;00;12 in the classroom, but outside of the classroom, how is it that, and what strategies can we give to students to really help them commit to listening to others with whom they have principled disagreement and have strategies when they encounter that kind of deep resistance to listening to another viewpoint? So Carol is a tough one.
00;37;25;19 [Carol A. Sumner]: Well, we, um, I was at another institution. There's no secret, you'll see it in my bio. I was at Arizona state university for 14 years. There's sunshine almost every day and free speech visitors. Many of those days that would be there for eight hours a day. Um, and they would take a pretty entrenched position on some of the things that they would say on campus. Uh, and so our responsibility as an institution was to help students navigate that. But you know, one of the things Jack, Jackie, that
00;37;57;04 I would say is that we don't create pockets. Like here, you get to practice and understand what it is to disagree civilly. And then here, it's a very different experience. We're trying to teach them the skills, the language, the experience of participating in part in conversations where you're not always going to be the person with everyone agreeing to. And so how do we teach them that individuals will have different perspectives? I think there's also a part of this that we're trying to
00;38;25;11 teach students, which is learn histories. You know, sometimes things are said out of ignorance. Other times things are set as perpetuated, um, um, thoughts and ideologies because they haven't known differently. And so, you know, I will often have these exercises that I'll do with, with individuals that are low threat. Um, and so I ask questions, how do you eat your cereal? And it seems like, uh, what kind of question is that? But I did
00;38;53;27 this exercise with three students and I asked them, how do they do want students says, well, I eat it. I pour my cereal in the bowl first. And then I pour my milk on top. Another student said, same room, three students, all three females. The next student says, well, I don't like milk.
00;39;09;13 [Carol A. Sumner]: I eat my cereal dry. And the third was like the mindblower. She says, I actually pour my milk in the bowl first and then eat the cereal. You know, I pour some in, I eat the cereal out the bowl until it's gone and then pour back in. So I'm thinking, who does that right? That's not something I'd heard of, but for her, it was because she didn't like soggy cereal. And so as a child, she found a way to do it. I share this because people approach things differently. If we don't ever
00;39;39;06 ask, how did you come to that? We don't have the opportunity to learn or to explore. And I had a conversation with someone else where we, we vastly differed on our political ideologies, but at the end of the conversation, what we both agreed on is I don't want you making assumptions about me based on something that, you know, and we share more things in common than we share differences, but in the midst, we all want to be valued as
00;40;07;03 individuals. So how do we maintain that? But I don't partition Off. And that's what we're trying to And to teach students, is that what in the classroom, isn't that separate from what happens when you walk through the quad or when you get into these other dialogues or conversations, when you get on Facebook, because free speech is not consequence free speech. And so we want people to understand that there will be those that will push back. So how do you then have that conversation in a meaningful way?
00;40;36;08 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. Okay. It looks like Vijay You were trying to jump in there too. And I I'll ask you in a minute about the same question, but how do you get people to really commit to listening? Um, but I didn't want to invite our audience to submit questions. I see some questions are already, uh, queuing up for us. Um, so, um, if you can submit your questions with the hashtag, BPC live or on, uh, YouTube or Facebook and a chat function, uh, Vijay How about, how about, I know Cornell has a wonderful statement that you issued last year, the Cornell core values. And
00;41;09;02 the second one is about open inquiry exchange and free expression. When, when students really don't want to hear or say something is too, too disagreeable, too offensive, how do you get students to commit to that core value of open inquiry?
00;41;26;17 [ Vijay Pendakur]: Sure. I'm going to try and go for a two for here. Cause I see Carolyn Cooper has submitted a question that says, what will be the hardest facet of student life to adopt amid the pandemic? Right? So I'm going to try and land at the nexus of Jackie's question. And Carolyn's question here, because I see, I think these are, these are pretty intertwined. Um, the times that I've seen and the polarization that we're talking about right campuses are reflective of our society. So I also think when, when the media takes American higher education to task for something
00;41;55;21 that is actually symptomatic of a broader social problem, it's, it's pretty, um, dishonest right there. The level of polarized polarization we're seeing in our campuses is reflective of the same polarizations we see in our society. But nonetheless, the opportunity campuses have that oftentimes broader societies don't have our, to actually structure what I see as one of the possible, um, you know, uh, not solutions, but it can help make this less worse, um, is to structure complex intergroup
00;42;22;23 interaction, um, that it's not about these topics, but about other things.
00;42;28;17 [ Vijay Pendakur]: So for example, there are some very polarized groups at Cornell where the heads of these groups you would think would hate each other because in terms of how they spar in the campus newspaper, or when they show up at the student government and spar in front of the student government, they're just at each other's throats. But the presidents and vice presidents, these groups sometimes are like best friends. And I see them hanging out on the quad, like thinking and stuff, and I'm like, what's going on here? So I always ask, I walk up and I'm like, show me, are you Teresa chummy? When I see you in the newspaper? And they're like, Oh, well we took this alternative spring break trip together. And we were doing
00;43;00;10 service work here and learning. And then we were just posted up in the youth hostel talking until like three in the morning. And yeah, I can't stand their views on this thing, but we're like ride or die homies now. And so it's like, okay, the secret sauce of American liberal education. And I mean, liberal, not political, but as you know, in terms of the model stemming from the enlightenment, the secret sauce, right? The complex intergroup experience that comes from living together.
00;43;27;23 And so one of the things that I'm most worried about as somebody who's lived life in the co-curricular and the outside of classroom experiences in the, in the move to the fully virtual, the hardest part of student life to adapt is the, the, the, the catalytic experiences that happen when you are forced to physically be in the room and do things with people that are not like you and virtual environments offer way too much of a chance for you to curate your own echo chamber. And that's part of the problem. And what's the Gen Z research shows that if you grow up in a
00;43;57;30 digital space, you likely are growing up in an echo chamber because you can do that in the digital space. And so I'm very worried about, I would love for this pandemic to be over soon so that we can get back to the complexity of in-person contact that I actually think, um, dissolves some of the, uh, entrenchment, um, that is haunting our society so badly right now. Yeah.
00;44;18;28 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Right. Well, thank you. We are going to turn to questions, uh, and, uh, almost immediately, but before we do that, Elizabeth, I went to, uh, we really to offer our audience, uh, takeaways that they can take advantage of this fall. And I know that your Institute is going to be launching a microsite for, for schools that are a little bit overwhelmed trying to help their students get ready, both to, to register, to vote and to be knowledgeable about the vote. So can you tell us a little
00;44;46;04 bit about your requisite that you're launching next month?
00;44;48;22 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. So certainly one of the great concerns I have right now, and I'm not alone is what the pandemic will do, the effects of the pandemic on the youth vote. Um, and as we know, you know, young adults, 18 to 29 year old’s, um, uh, make up a significant portion of the electorate. And, um, in the last few years, in particular, we've seen, um, uh, student vote or young adults voting in higher numbers, uh, 2018. Um, we saw some really significant increases, much of that has to do not just with the
00;45;21;27 attitudinal. I, you know, the outlook of gen Z, but a lot of it has to do with what college campuses have been doing. Um, in recent years, college campuses have really honed models of getting students engaged, registered, and voting. Much of that though has been thanks to in-person contact, um, doing voter registration drives and get out the vote drives. So we're not gonna have that this fall for many campuses. And as you suggested, Jackie,
00;45;47;23 you know, expectations, norms, practices of voting for young adults in particular are going to be upended. Um, so what we've done is really take the model we've honed on the Rutgers campus, through our voting, um, and taking it national.
00;46;02;23 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: Um, are you voting is an initiative of Rutgers university that we administer at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, and it's really meant to be a one stop shop, a reference, a resource that's nonpartisan, but accurate, um, that really walks students through how to get registered, how to get information on candidates, um, and how to get to the polls, how to vote. So, and much of that we've done through our website. So we are taking that model, um, and creating a micro site, um, that will be available this September and available to college students
00;46;34;14 colleges across the country that really will offer students state specific information. Um, the most pertinent, current information they're going to need about their voter registration practices in their state, uh, vote by mail practices in their state, um, but also some national resources. Um, and, you know, we think it's so important. Um, not only for students to find it, but for colleges to know there is, um, there is a resource that will be available to are applicable to all of
00;47;04;10 their students, no matter what state they're from. And, you know, as has been referenced earlier too, I think the more campuses can embed civic engagement into the culture of their campus. Um, the more successful they'll be at getting students politically engaged, civically engaged. Um, but as I said, that's going to be a real challenge this fall, not just because colleges are so overwhelmed right now and facing significant budget setbacks. Um, but there's so much uncertainty and there's so much
00;47;33;12 inaccurate information out there. I think one of the things that's so alarming to me is how politicized vote by mail has become this fall. And it just makes a practice. Um, that's already confusing, um, particular, particularly to college students, even more confusing.
00;47;49;20 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: So we want to offer that nonpartisan, accurate, reliable information for students, um, and colleges really supporting colleges. So it's going to be called, are you voting national, a micro site? Um, and we'll be available to campuses. Um, the September.
00;48;05;05 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: I know people have got their pens and pencils out, and they're writing that down to be able to follow up. Now to turn to questions to answer. Our first question is from, uh, Nick Dressler. Uh, what strategies do you recommend to get student collaboration with and buying into election related programming? Even our student government has been resistant to getting involved to date, um, Aaliyah, maybe we'll start with you on getting students involved.
00;48;34;02 [Aaliyah McLean]: Yes. Um, and it's interesting that, um, like it's been hard art to even in government, um, I think immobilized to do that work. Um, so I actually was the student body president, um, this past year. So I'm the current outgoing student body president. And I think for just helping to engage students is how do you find a way connect it to what they are actually interested in? I think a lot of times students will say, um, election programming on the end to that. That's not what our mission is, but I think how do you connect your mission to the elections? How do you
00;49;04;21 connect your mission to this greater public? Good. Um, and so even with the student government associate and when I was president, um, I, we had a legislative affairs chair and his primary duty last year was just keeping us updated with different student policies that we thought would be really important for us to understand, to mobilize, but also, um, different elections, something that civic the center for civic engagement does is we do traveling town halls.
00;49;27;03 [Aaliyah McLean]: And so this is where we invite candidates who are running any, either local elections or just candidates that we know that are running, that we can get to come to Harrisonburg, and we bring them into the residence halls. And so in that lobby, we'll connect with them. And I think that's a great way to connect with different student organizations, because like, how can you connect their mission with a certain, um, candidate? How can you, um, just get them to feel like this is important to me? And so something we do is we train different student works to do voter registration, and this gives them the agency to do it on their terms at their programs at their meetings. But then we just kind of equip
00;49;59;02 them with the skills and then they kind of have a civic agency to do it and to kind of feel free with that. And so I really think that's the main thing is connect that, um, to them. And then from there, I think there'll be, they'll mobilize themselves. They're so interested in it connects with their passion.
00;50;12;24 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah, Carol,.
00;50;17;01 [Carol A. Sumner]: I would just, I would, I would totally, um, say that that is one of the things and recognizing that the, the lack of interest or apathy or fear or concern is multifaceted because it's about your opinion, your perspective matters. And so what we're trying to get students to understand it. I see this again on a continuum when we ask students to share with us, what's your experience at the university, give us feedback, right? It's also, when you tell people what you need, you can hold them
00;50;50;13 accountable to meeting it. But if you do not express it, you cannot hold people accountable. So elections to politics, to looking at the student experience, to talking about the things that matter to you, those are relative to using value in your voice. And so while they may say, well, my voice matters here. We can say to students, which is why we, and in my
00;51;16;27 practice, we've created space for a student group that is really in coalition.
00;51;21;16 [Carol A. Sumner]: They don't have to be affiliated with anything, but we call it, they call themselves student intersectional leadership council, and they come together to talk about issues of diversity, of equity, of, of how are we talking about these? They then work with student government, but you're trying to let students know there are many ways to have your voice matter, but you've got to know that for all of these things, because otherwise just kind of say, nobody cares. My voice is a single voice because they've heard that far too long and we have to change that
00;51;51;20 perspective and then getting them to see students like Aaliyah. Who've gone on to do great things again, it's being able to see when I voice here's, what is the potential.
00;52;01;17 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: I want to bring it up. Uh, I know Elizabeth, do you like to come in and then Vijay?
00;52;09;18 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: Well, I think it's so interesting, you know, because there's already some good research, you know, pre pandemic. And before we were all remote about the importance of peer to peer contact. So we know that voter registration and mobilization, for example, um, is always going to be more successful when peers are reaching out to peers. Um, and certainly that's the case with college aged students. Um, and I think that's been, again, you know, sort of, uh, necessity is the mother of invention. You know, there's been a lot of opportunities for us that we've honed over the summer and we'll be using into the fall for our Rutgers
00;52;41;10 students to be reaching out to other Rutgers students are playing a more visible role in the work that we're doing. So, for example, um, and it may be a way to involve more student groups.
00;52;51;01 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: Um, so for example, doing Q and A's with election officials, having our students do those Q and A's with election officials, not me, um, or video could have been created by students. Um, you know, the fact that we're all virtual, you know, using tools that they are, uh, networks that they're already tapped into, um, to distribute our messaging, to disseminate our messaging. We've created something called an, are you voting ambassadors program for the students who would normally have been volunteering and doing voter registration drives on campus and can, um, to
00;53;22;01 really be creating digital content for, are you voting, um, and creating it and sharing, sharing it on our social media platforms, um, and just sort of amplifying our voter information messaging. So, um, so, but, and I think so Aaliyah has brought up some really good ideas, but I think the more students can be doing this work and being visible. That's going to make the greatest impact.
00;53;44;11 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Vijay I want to bring in you here too?
00;53;47;21 [ Vijay Pendakur]: Yeah. I just wanted to, you know, raise a few thoughts and stir the pot of it here, because I, you know, I've been hearing about youth apathy in the voting space since I was a teenager. Um, and over the last several years, I think the conversation about sort of where the energy is around young people in voting has to be contrast that against the backdrop of one of the most exciting social movements of our time, both in 2014 and 2015, and now black lives matter. And the ansular movements surrounding BLM that are led by young people. And so I also think
00;54;21;08 that it's difficult to talk about apathy. Um, when if you look out your window, we've got young people in the streets deeply engaged in one of the finest forms of democracy, which is, which is to kind of agitate and try and stop the machine so that you can get actions that oppressive structures have been unwilling to yield for centuries.
00;54;40;15 [ Vijay Pendakur]: And so I think that I'm, I'm troubled by, by conversations around youth apathy in the political process, because there are multiple forms of political process. And the one that we're focusing on in today's conversation happens to be one that has historically and presently silence and excluded people to the point where they might just be done with it. So I, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to take such a narrow, liberal viewpoint on voting that we actually forget the sort of far left viewpoint here, which is this machine has so successfully excluded.
00;55;11;14 Um, so many groups that they just might be done. Their community wisdom might be like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'd rather occupy city hall because, because nobody's listening to me and I have cast my vote, I have cast my vote and I have cast my vote. So if you can hear some passion in my voice, I do think it's because I, I think that there is a very centrist, um, trope happening in our dialogue right now that I find very problematic. And it doesn't actually mesh up against the history or the present of what's going on in our country right now.
00;55;39;07 [Carol A. Sumner]: Well, what I would add though, is that, um, but as we talk about, uh, you know, the word apathy has been used, but it's been disempowerment, right? Because I think it's a projection that says that students don't care. But the reality is I have, I have been disempowered to the point that I feel these frustrations and, and then it just becomes an explosion. What we're trying to do is to promote dialogue is to see incremental steps and, and, and movement. But that means action. And so
00;56;12;03 simultaneous to us saying to the students that they need to raise their voices and continue raising the voices through applying their vote. It's also recognizing the structures that have to change. So when we say to students, we value your vote, then you better be letting them do something with that. And simultaneously we have to change. We can't keep saying yes, you matter, sit over there and wait your turn. Um, that's not working. So,
00;56;38;25 you know, I'm very, I, as you talk about passion, I'm passionate about language because apathy, I think has just been disempowerment. And they were like, you know what we're done, we're done, but done is not finished. Done is like, I'm done talking, I'm going to, I'm going to take it to the next level. I want you to talk to me so that you can see the impact of your voice. We have not been there.
00;57;02;01 [Elizabeth C. Matto]: And certainly, Yeah. And I would, and I am also in that, you know, certainly in my teaching and in our practice, really identifying for students, what are the structures that are in place when it comes to voter registration and election day practices, and they're not done by accident, helping students understand the role of state legislatures in creating things like, um, uh, identification rules regarding identification. Um, these aren't by accident. They're created for a purpose, but, and again, helping students identify
00;57;35;03 what these are and how to undo them. So I would agree also.
00;57;39;09 [Carol A. Sumner]: If I could say that's one thing it's used as a mechanism to keep people out of conversation, because if you act out of order, you can interject conversation. Cause you can call me out of order. Right. But anyway, right. You know, you gotta teach the rules, you have to open the doors and let students see because otherwise it remains clouded and invisible, which is not accessible.
00;58;06;27 [Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill]: Yeah. At the end of our hour, I know we could keep going for quite a bit longer, but gosh, I just really want to say thank you so much. Uh, Elizabeth Vijay, Carol and Aaliyah, thank you so much for sharing your, your expertise and knowledge today. Thanks very much for our audience for taking time and the questions and comments that you shared. Please do subscribe to our BPC YouTube channel. We want to say from all of us at BPC, for all of you who are in colleges and university campuses, we
00;58;40;00 know you're coming back to what will be a very challenging and difficult semester. We send you our very best wishes and to learn more about our work at BPC on, on campus free expression. I encourage you to visit our website bipartisanpolicy.org, where you can subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter and watch the first in this two part webinar series, the first one was called pandemic pedagogy classroom in remote instruction and open exchange.
00;59;06;08 So thanks very much all do have a good weekend. Bye bye.
00;59;09;05 [Carol A. Sumner]: Congratulations, Aaliyah.
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As campuses prepare for the upcoming school year, among their challenges are creating classroom and campus life environments under circumstances of physical distancing and remote learning. To grapple with these issues and to explore strategies for promoting free expression on campuses this fall, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Campus Free Expression Project is hosting a two-part webinar series from noon to 1 p.m. ET on July 24 and 31.
Our series features a group of outstanding faculty, students, and administrators who are thinking about free expression and open inquiry during these difficult times. Find out more and register for each session below.
July 31 | Beyond the Classroom: Student Life During COVID-19
This event will consider what lies in store for campus student life, student organizations, and preparing students to reflect on nationally important issues during the 2020 election.
Featured Participants:
Elizabeth C. Matto
Associate Research Professor, Rutgers University; Director, Center for Youth Political Participation, Eagleton Institute of Politics
@ecmatto
Aaliyah McLean
Immediate Past President, James Madison University Student Government Association; Woodson Martin Democracy Fellow, James Madison Center for Civic Engagement
@_AaliyahMcLean
Vijay Pendakur
Robert W. and Elizabeth C. Staley Dean of Students, Cornell University
@VijayPendakur
Carol A. Sumner
Vice President of the Division of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer, Texas Tech University
@TTUDiversity
Moderated by:
Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill
Director of the Campus Free Expression Project, BPC
@JPfefferMerrill
July 24 | Pandemic Pedagogy: Remote Teaching and Open Exchange
This event will focus on strategies for encouraging conversations across difference, constructive dialogue, and classroom conversations about contentious issues in a remote classroom.
Featured Participants:
Samantha Hedges
Doctoral Candidate, Indiana University; Co-Moderator, Heterodox Academy’s HxK-12Education Community
Alfred Montero
Associate Dean of the College, Director of Advising, and Frank B. Kellogg Professor of Political Science, Carleton College
Libby Roderick
Director, Difficult Dialogues Initiative and Associate Director, Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence, University of Alaska Anchorage
Charlotte C.S. Thomas
Co-Director, Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for America’s Founding Principles and Professor of Philosophy, Mercer University
@charlietho
Moderated by:
Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill
Director of the Campus Free Expression Project, BPC
@JPfefferMerrill
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