In SCiLL pilot, students to exercise free expression, civil discourse
New Tar Heels will move through issues, literally, in a half-hour program led by School of Civic Life and Leadership faculty.
When Inger Brodey and Christian Lundberg say their new pilot program is an exercise in free expression and civil discourse, that’s just what they mean. One way these School of Civic Life and Leadership faculty members want to teach first-year students about debate and dialogue is to have them move around a room to gain new perspectives on issues.
Christian Lundberg and Inger Brodey
“It’s kind of a fun exercise. They move back and forth to demonstrate where they stand on an issue,” said Lundberg, also an associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ communication department. “The goal is to normalize differences of opinion and show how communities are constituted by lots of different folks with different perspectives.”
The movement is key to the 30-minute program being introduced to about 200 new Tar Heels during the Weeks of Welcome. “We want to have it be participatory, so that they’re feeling like their voices are important and that we want to hear them,” said Brodey, also a professor in the College’s English and comparative literature department. “The norm is respectful disagreement.”
Learning to be a citizen
To take part in a democracy, its citizens should know how the system works and how to discuss the issues. This principle guided the development of Carolina’s IDEAs in Action curriculum, launched in fall 2022, which includes a focus on ethical and civic values and required courses in oral communication. SCiLL was established in 2023 to build a broader faculty base to support this curriculum, especially the discussion and debate requirements.
The University also created a committee on academic freedom and free expression in 2023. Lundberg was the chair, and Brodey was one of the 20 other faculty, staff and student members. The committee developed guidance for students, faculty and staff to ensure they understand their rights and freedoms and those of others.
‘Central to the mission’
Catching students just as they arrive on campus, the pilot program instills in them North Carolina’s rich tradition of supporting free speech. It begins with a 15-minute history lesson full of fun facts. Did you know the state’s 1776 Declaration of Rights was a model for the federal Bill of Rights? Or that Carolina’s school colors trace their origin to theribbons given to members of the University’s Dialectic (light blue) and Philanthropic (white) debate societies?“We want to emphasize that becoming part of the history of the Tar Heels is also to align yourself with a commitment to free, open expression, inquiry and dialogue,” Lundberg said.
In the last 15 minutes of the program, students move through the free expression exercise and learn about free expression and civil discourse resources on campus. SCiLL faculty hope to scale the pilot to make it available to all first-year students in future years.
“We want to create a tight 30-minute intervention that gives students exposure to the underlying cultural commitments that constitute Carolina’s commitment to free speech,” Lundberg said. “Our hope is that ultimately a cumulative set of small steps will help ameliorate some of those larger problems of polarization.”
The pilot program is the latest step in the University’s response to political polarization, sure to be heightened in the 2024 election season.
“What’s more critical right now than being able to calmly express opinions, give evidence, listen to opposing ideas, actually hear the evidence of other people, be willing to reassess, and have a conversation?” Brodey said. “There’s nothing more central, I think, to the mission of the University than this.”
