Faculty members have increasingly voiced concern about having the skills to lead students through controversial conversations.
As a self-described expert in “all things political on college campuses,” Nancy Thomas is no stranger to conflict and controversy. But over the past year—amid attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts; divisive protests; and mounting tensions over the upcoming election—the executive director of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education has watched faculty concerns about managing complex conversations multiply.
“I’ve been doing this work for a long time, and what I’m worried about is the backdrop of fear and self-censorship on campuses,” said Thomas, whose institute is part of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. “[Faculty and staff members] are afraid of retaliation, of getting hammered by their students, of being videotaped and then the tapes go viral.”
In some cases, faculty said they became so worried about navigating conflicts in the classroom that it started to affect the quality of their teaching, Thomas added. It was time to respond—and AAC&U did.
This week the association, in conjunction with the Sustained Dialogue Institute (SDI), launched the Campus Conflict and Conversation Help Desk, a virtual resource designed to provide free, timely advice to any campus instructor or administrator facing difficult dialogues, whether in class, meetings with colleagues, co-curricular activities or off-campus events.
Similar efforts have popped up elsewhere, both at the institutional level and in the form of one-on-one advising. To take one example, Shira Hoffer, a senior at Harvard University, recently launched a nonprofit consulting group, known as the Institute for Multipartisan Education, which advises K-12 and postsecondary educators on how to improve the quality of discourse over polarizing topics.
The concept of AAC&U’s help desk is pretty straightforward: Higher education staff members looking to troubleshoot a tricky situation can go to the AAC&U website to fill out a brief nine-question form. The inquiry is then processed by a program coordinator, who assigns it to two of the desk’s nine consultants based on the keywords and their topical specialties. The hope is that each adviser will provide a slightly different perspective on how best to approach the conflict at hand.
The panel includes Thomas; Rhonda Fitzgerald, SDI’s executive director; and a handful of scholars with expertise in political science, communications, DEI initiatives, constructive dialogue and higher education administration.
All inquiries are confidential and will not be assigned to a consultant affiliated with the same college or university as the sender. But the tool is intended to aid educators across the country, so AAC&U notes that its ultimate goal is to anonymously publish useful questions and answers for public viewing—with the inquirer’s permission.
The form also notes that not all inquiries, particularly those seeking legal advice, will be answered.
Higher Ed’s ‘Public Mission’
Fitzgerald said that while each campus is “a very unique environment,” the desk’s underlying aim is to promote open conversations that improve the public perception of higher ed.
“In other words,” she said, “we’re really thinking about the public mission of higher ed, which is not just to create robust conversation, but also to do it in a way that respects the dignity of everyone in that room.”
The majority of the inquiry responses will be delivered in written form, Fitzgerald said, but some may require role-playing by Zoom or phone to simulate what student prompts and faculty responses might look like.
“There are some real prevention structures or tools that can be put in place right up front,” she said, including setting an academic standard for evidence-based argumentation, rather than relying on “lazy or hurtful stereotypes.” The experts also help discussion leaders determine when to intervene or cut things off, and give them practice in doing so.
“That’s sometimes the hard part, because it requires so much quick, improvisational thinking if you haven’t prepared for it,” Fitzgerald said.
And although campus protests tend to occur in less contained settings, the recommendations for handling them remain largely the same, she added.
“The analogous thing between the classroom and shared spaces on campus is that they’re functioning very similarly,” but colleges are not providing the same level of clarity on guidelines for the latter, she said. “Campuses should be clear about what are the policy-based, state-based and legally based boundaries that tell us where something’s over the line. Otherwise we risk faculty and students saying that there’s been an authoritarian approach to squashing dissent.”
The help line is currently running on volunteer efforts and a grant of less than $5,000, but Fitzgerald and Thomas believe it’s worth it to offer everyone the kind of consultation work that they typically do at a macro departmental or institutional level.
Thomas hopes that by collecting data over time, the help desk will gain a better sense of the concerns troubling everyone from top administrators to adjuncts and then use that information to quell fears and promote constructive engagement on campus.
“I am also a learner at heart, and I am hoping to learn from the others on the help desk and develop my own skills to get better at navigating these things,” she said. But she’s also confident that her team has the background it takes to get the conversation started. “It’s like the … insurance ad that says, ‘We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.’ I think this group collectively has seen a thing or two.”