University of Minnesota Initiative Seeks to Improve Public Discourse

SPEAKERS

Jim du Bois, Doug Hartmann

Jim du Bois  00:00

Dialogue Minnesota...conversations about the issues that matter to you. I'm Jim du Bois. Americans don't agree with each other on a wide variety of issues, but many of us do agree that we are a strongly divided country along political, racial, religious and ideological lines. Public discourse has become increasingly toxic in recent years, fueled by these divisions, and propagated through social media, talk radio and other channels. A new initiative by the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts aims to help students become better able to understand opposing viewpoints and engage in productive dialogue with those who disagree with them. This week on Dialogue Minnesota, a conversation with U of M Sociology Professor Douglas Hartmann who's the director of this program called the Public Life Project. Professor Hartmann, welcome back to Dialogue Minnesota

Doug Hartmann  00:55

Always a pleasure to be here and talk.

Jim du Bois  00:58

The Public Life Project is a new initiative in the College of Liberal Arts. Tell us about this project. What does it all encompass? And how does it bridge the college's academics to larger discussions about public discourse?

Doug Hartmann  01:12

This initiative took shape a couple of years ago, as students and faculty as well as alumni and collegiate donors and supporters have been concerned about issues of polarization and social difference and conflict, both on campus and in our communities. And so, we started talking a lot about that from two different angles. One is the angle of access, inclusion, welcoming of students across a whole range of backgrounds. And then the other is with respect to the perceptions that some students have of being not well accommodated or included on campus. And that can be kind of from the leftish for, like first generation students, students of color, but also from more traditional communities that you might not think of like conservative students, or rural students, or students with strong religious beliefs. So, we've been thinking a lot about the research we do on those topics, but especially then, about how we deal with both these topics, and this wide range of students in our classrooms and on the campus generally. And we've also been thinking that we need to be a leader and a role model for the rest of our communities, our state and our region, in terms of how to deal with these really challenging issues of difference, division, and especially polarization in our nation today.

Jim du Bois  02:39

In the age of social media, what do you think public life means for most people? And what does public life mean in the context of this project?

Doug Hartmann  02:49

In terms of public life, I think what we're trying to signal is first and foremost, about how our college and our university you need to be involved in the broader community, that we're not just an ivory tower place that sits out or outside of or above everyone else. But we're very much of the public. We want to be part of that, and then model that for our communities. Public here, I think is a word that we've chosen to kind of capture the broad scope of who includes our citizenry, our communities. And it's supposed to kind of be very general and broad and inclusive, which can be extremely challenging in an era where we're often fragmented, siloed and disconnected, whether it's along political lines, racial lines, rural, urban, religious, conservative, or liberal. All these different ways that we're divided, where we tend to segregate ourselves, communicate only with others like us, and similarly, consume only media and information of the sort that we already know, and we're already hearing. So how do we overcome that? How do we create a broader community, a broader collectivity, a common, a public? And so that's, that's what we're very much trying to do here. I should say a lot of the impetus did start with our students and our curriculum. The original idea or title of the initiative was the Civic Readiness Initiative. That was really focused on students, and focused on preparing students from this wide array of backgrounds that constitutes liberal arts and university students at the University of Minnesota for Minnesota and all over the country, trying to make sure all of our students are prepared in terms of how to think and work and interact across all these different lines of difference. Not only on campus, but really for their lives after campus, for their lives in a world that is tremendously diffuse, difference and often divided, and where we still need to aim for, aspire to a broader commonality and public good.

Jim du Bois  04:57

Can you give us some examples of the courses and community events that are happening in the public life project this fall?

Doug Hartmann  05:05

Oh, absolutely. On the course side, I guess there's three things I'd call attention to. One is a signature course that our colleague, Howie Levine, who's also our Social Science Dean is offering about polarization, How to Understand the Other Side is the title of it. So it's really oriented. He's a political scientist oriented to kind of address partisan divides, understand the origins of those, why they're so difficult, and how and start to think about working across those. We also have a whole suite of freshmen seminars, very different angles and themes from different departments and disciplines, some of which are directly about issues of difference and polarization. Others are about more generic topics, but they want to make a point of bringing different perspectives onto those topics into the classroom. You know, there's geography classes, there's an art history class, an English class, we've just have a range of faculty who are teaching and then but really making a point of addressing difference and the differences that students bring into the classroom. And then of course, I got to mention my own class. I'm going to teach you a special one credit book class on this new volume Minnesota Historical Society put out called Sparked, which is essays mostly by scholars of color reflecting on the complexities of race in the Twin Cities after George Floyd. So, we're going to read those together. Why that's in this course, not only is it because race has been such a source of challenge for our community. But the original idea of that project was to capture both the possibility as well as the deep problems of race and racism in Minnesota. The kind of complexity of the racial gaps where in some ways, we have really progressive culture that's open and inviting in some ways, and then we also have these gaps on the other side. So, it's to grapple with all those. So, that's all on the student side. And then we've got some public events that go along with that. In November, we're going to bring Walt Jacobs who's the editor of that Sparked volume in to do kind of a big collective book club to feature that book. Working backwards, in October, we'll have Abbey Philip, an up and coming national journalist to talk about media, and the media's role in both perpetuating and maybe starting to alleviate some of the polar differences we see in society. And then we're going to do a launch and discussion of a series of vignettes that we produced with Twin Cities public television, about the initiative. Those have actually already been running. You might have seen a few of them, some of our listeners might have as well. There's three ones, one is kind of about the project as a whole, another is about media and misinformation, and a third is about religion. And these are featured where we interview faculty and students about how they understand and experience these issues on campus, and and how we are trying to address those in novel, creative and innovative ways. Our students have been remarkably engaging and excited to deal with these differences. And it's one of the really interesting things that's come out of that partnership with TPT. I think their audience tends to be a little older, and a little more afraid of all these issues, whereas our students embrace the challenges, and really see the necessity for us to dive right in on religious issues, on rural suburban issues, on political issues. And that's kind of heartening and exciting. And it's fun to see that and to see how our, our faculty are playing off of that.

Jim du Bois  08:44

Most Americans, while sadly not agreeing on much, would agree that we are a divided nation. How has this division impacted the U of M campus?

Doug Hartmann  08:55

For some, it has felt as if we're siloed. And some students then don't feel as welcomed in certain classes or classrooms or for certain subject matter as others. I don't think we've had as much of it as happened on other campuses around the country. And that can involve the kind of issue that we often call cancel culture where there's not a lot of tolerance for speakers who you don't agree with. Issues around academic freedom, as well as free speech have been at the fore. A lot of these issues. It's been hard to kind of see them the last year or two because we haven't been on campuses much. We've been on Zoom. We haven't been face-to-face. I think our campus has has not experienced as much of the intensity of those in a grand way as other places have. But we see it on in individual classrooms, and a few of those are alluded to in some of the vignettes that we produced. But I think that it is even as that you see some examples of that, I think there's a real hunger from students as well as faculty and staff to reconstitute the institution of the university and the campus as a place of engagement, of embrace of difficult conversations, of differences. But that's never easy. And so, even I think some of the examples where we try very systematically or deliberately to address difficult issues, whether it's from the right or the left, those often create difficult situations, and sometimes hard feelings. One other thing I'd like to say on that, I think, as a society, we often are really worried about and bemoan polarization and partisanship. We see these divisions as making it really difficult for us to govern and create legislation, creating large scale fights and contention in society. But I would say one of the other unique things on campus, especially from faculty, I think there's a whole contingent of faculty who are far more, I wouldn't say excited, but ready to embrace polarization, conflict and division, because for some of those folks, some of those issues we haven't talked about for way too long. And it's hard to make social change or say issues of race, or religious inclusion or exclusion, it's hard to change those if you're not confronting them directly, and then invites conflict as well as conversation and dialogue. So I'd say, a fair number of the faculty are teaching on this. Some are very worried about polarization, others think maybe it's time for us to really embrace it.

Jim du Bois  11:45

Do you think there are significant differences between the students of today versus the students of 10 or 20 years ago? Were students in the past perhaps more accepting of the challenge of learning different viewpoints? And if so, what has changed?

Doug Hartmann  12:02

Wow, I'm not sure how much individual students have changed, whether they're more accepting than they were. But I do think there's so much more awareness of and intensity of polarization, especially along political lines. That's me not just speculating now about our students or about campus life, but about our culture and society. In the last decade, we've really become a society where political identities and ideologies are extremely, not just divisive, which they are, but pronounced and salient, that they dictate an awful lot of how people think and who they talk to, and what they're willing to agree with or disagree with. And I think our students experience that. They bring that into the classroom. So they, I don't know that they're less willing or more willing to engage that, but it's a far more kind of contested, controversial and divided terrain in the world that they're encountering. You know, for some, they're just ready to dive in. Others, it can promote a certain kind of complacency. It's easier to avoid certain topics or step back. Frankly, that's the students I'm the most concerned about and most interested to reach out to, is that kind of quiet, middle of the road folks who want to just avoid a lot of society's problems and not have to talk about that in the classroom, and just stick to the subject matter or what have you. But I'd also say, to be fair and honest, I think there's a small contingent of students who are quite more politically motivated and mobilized. And maybe, maybe in ways that wasn't the case 10 or 15 years ago, want to make certain issues of focus, no matter what the subject matter of that conversation. I think that's far from majority. I think it's a small group. But it's a very, on different sides, very vocal, and very impactful groups because of the kind of sensitivities around all these issues for all of us.

Jim du Bois  14:20

How do you think social media has impacted American discourse, and have these impacts changed the way in which students engage with their course content and with one another?

Doug Hartmann  14:33

One of the TPT segments was about social media and media. And so, we've got some great experts on campus in the college on that. I don't want to trample on their ground too much. I think there's no doubt we have kind of polarization within the within media production and consumption that people in society listen to or follow different circles or niches of media. Students bring that in. I think that we're across our curriculum not only in Journalism and Communication, but across the curriculum, hoping to help students see this, understand it, be aware of it, and then have strategies to combat this so that they are getting information, finding facts, thinking about social problems from a variety of perspectives, but also where they're able to evaluate and adjudicate, where is knowledge, what is good facts, what stuff I need to be more skeptical about. I don't know if it's specifically and only about social media, but a lot of our faculty, I think one thing that they're all unified on, and we're not unified on a lot of things either, but one thing I think that we're very unified on, is the importance of facts and information. And I think we, many of us, regardless of field discipline, or research, we're committed to that. We're an institution of higher learning, it's about knowledge and information and facts that we all need. And so how we produce those facts, how we evaluate information and sources of information is very important to all of us. And I say that, because I think that cuts across ideological lines. And that's, that's not a liberal statement or a conservative one from our faculty, and from our stakeholders, and community members and alumni. It's more about what a public needs, what the common good needs, and we need a base of knowledge and understanding about the world that we live in, and, and all the different things around us. I mean, I don't necessarily know if you want to go into it, but I think the response to COVID and the science of vaccines, of public health, of masks and distancing, just remind us again in a highly intensified way of how divided we are on issues of information and science, and how difficult it is to operate as communities and regions and states and a nation when we don't have at least some kind of shared sense of what we can all agree on and the principles we can work from.

Jim du Bois  17:15

What are some of the key tools and coping strategies that students need to confront ideas with which they disagree?

Doug Hartmann  17:25

So, some of that is kind of empathy, a willingness to engage and embrace others, to take the positions and standpoints of people you don't agree with seriously, put yourself in their position. That's really the, Howie's signature class on polarization, I think is trying to operationalize that. I think there also then besides just the attitude of empathy and understanding, I think communication skills, being able to communicate your own ideas, but understand the different ways that other communities will communicate their ideas and their knowledge and understanding. That involves reading, that involves writing, that involves consumption of media. I think it also involves an understanding of facts and information, what's debatable and what's not. And that information could be about scientific things, about physiological things, but also about social things, about the realities of income distribution in our society or equity gaps in education. I think it's to develop an appreciation of knowledge and facts and how important they are, but then also how we produce knowledge, how we produce facts and information. Because we do, and I think it's super arrogant and inappropriate, a mistake that intellectuals make a lot, to not acknowledge and dig into the ways that we produce knowledge and information and all that's involved with that. We constantly are doing that. And what I hope our liberal arts students and others on campus are cultivating is an understanding of how we produce this knowledge, what's built into it, what it can do, and what it can't do. And then also being aware and attentive to aspects of human life that are not factual. They're not about information or science. It's about values and beliefs. And those are things we often will disagree on. And so, recognizing that, and then going back full circle, understanding how to engage and appreciate those kinds of differences. Making the world safe for difference is one of the most important things that we can teach in that respect.

Jim du Bois  19:43

How will the Public Life Project encourage open minded discussions?

Doug Hartmann  19:48

Well, hopefully, opening up our classrooms, course content and readings, but also pedagogy, how we do exchanges in classrooms. Hopefully, we've got faculty that are doing, we've always had faculty doing that, hopefully more of that and more self conscious about that. I think it's also having students be aware of that. And students be self-conscious of that, of what's needed to make that kind of engagement. Then also, I think we're hoping to bring some of our thinking, our strategies, our research to broader public audiences with these events that we're doing this fall. Part of that is to kind of give information and perspective. We're also hoping maybe to model how civic discourse can work in the context of real differences in a community or in an, in an audience. That's one of the things I'm really hoping we might see in the discussion of the Sparked volume about racism in Minnesota. I don't think everybody will or should agree on those issues. But hopefully, we can show conversations and exchanges that do that in a fashion that's engaging, that's respectful, that's empathetic, and can make us all the better for it.

Jim du Bois  21:00

It seems to be a growing trend on college campuses for students to protest certain professors and guest speakers who express opinions or research with which they disagree. Have you given much thought about how you and the Public Life faculty would respond if students disrupt or protest one of your events?

Doug Hartmann  21:22

Wow, um, the short answer on that is we haven't yet. Our our events in particular, we haven't because we are imagining them to be very attentive to appealing to a broad audience and inviting that. We've talked about it a little bit because I think we are imagining some speakers that might rub people of one orientation or another the wrong way, this semester or in the future. But I think others on campus have grappled with that more extensively, and recently in terms of their speakers and events. It's also really, a so one of the, it's really tricky on that with Zoom right now because like even for the fall, we're back to virtual events. And so, those are a little more controlled and contained. And we, I think it's less likely that we'd have the kind of disruptions that public events have had of late on on campuses. I'll say where we've probably thought the most about this, though, Jim, is even in just in classrooms, and we've had a number of examples of faculty who've felt threatened or silenced one way or the other for what they're teaching about in classrooms or how they've dealt with one group of students or another. And so, we actually are kind of working on that. The university has a pretty good set of codes for freedom of speech, on the one hand, academic freedom on the other, how those are balanced in classrooms, and the kind of role that faculty have. But we've been reviewing those and thinking those back through, and had more than a few cases, I think, across campus of individual classes where we're challenged again and again. Where are the boundaries on that? What are the, how far can students go? How far can faculty go? What are the responsibilities? So, I'd say we're stuck, we're working through those things, and the context is changing in terms of what's acceptable, what's not topics-wise or in kinds of the types of speech, but I think it's still pretty much of a moving target. And as we come out of COVID, and get back into the more regular campus life with public events, you know, that's where, holding my breath to see what we might experience on that front. But I think it would be naive to assume there won't be a lot of challenges on that as we move forward, especially as we embrace the difficult issues.

Jim du Bois  23:50

Doug Hartman is a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. He is also the director of the U's Public Life Project. Professor Hartmann, thanks again for joining us on Dialogue Minnesota.

Doug Hartmann  24:02

Always a pleasure, especially in this case, because we're really hoping to take the work we're doing and bring it, bring it to our communities throughout Minnesota.