Following a turbulent spring and looking ahead to what is likely to be a contentious fall semester, many faculty have been looking for resources that can help them prepare to turn difficult discussions into productive dialogue. When one professor asked his colleagues in the Small College POD for suggestions, many responded with recommended reading and websites. We’ve collected many of these suggestions below. If you have others you would like us to add, please send me a note (steven.volk@oberlin.edu).
General Guides
2024 Election Guidebook (Constructive Dialogue Institute): Maintaining campus community during the 2024 election.
Difficult Dialogues Handbooks (Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center).
PEN America’s Campus Free Speech Guide: A go-to resource for faculty, staff, and students provides practical, principled guidance for how campuses can best remain open to all voices.
Resources in the Face of Tragedy, Conflict, and Critical Incidents (POD Network): A valuable series of resources.
Advice from Teaching and Learning Centers
Creating Community Agreements (Berkeley Graduate Division, Teaching and Resource Center): Community agreements for discussion in section can help promote and organize productive conversations among students by building a sense of community and setting clear expectations and boundaries.
Navigating Heated, Offensive, and Tense (HOT) Moments in the Classroom (Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning): Includes suggestions and various resources.
Managing Difficult Classroom Discussions (Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, Indiana University Bloomington)
Responding to Difficult Moments (Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, University of Michigan). Resources include teaching and learning in a tense election season, responding to incidents of hate speech, and guidelines for planning and facilitating discussions on difficult or controversial topics.
Teaching in Times of Crisis (Nancy Chick, Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University): Whether local, national, or international in scope, times of crisis can have a significant impact on the college classroom.
Teaching in Times of Crisis (Faculty Development Center, Eastern Michigan University): a variety of points including the importance of considering the wellness of faculty and students alike, deciding whether or not to discuss the situation that has arisen, and various actions that one might take.
Books, Articles, and Blog Posts
Lara Hope Schwartz, Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life (Princeton, 2024): Written for students, offering a framework for understanding and practicing dialogue across difference in an out of the classroom.
Ilarion Merculieff and Libby Roderick, Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Learning and Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education (University of Alaska Anchorage, 2013): open access pdf here.
Can College Students Learn to Debate Without Getting Heated? (Kate Rix, Higher Ed Dive, July 30 2024): Argument mapping helps students visualize other points of view. Some professors are using the technique to help them build critical thinking skills.
Utilizing Conflict Management Strategies to Navigate Difficult Classroom Discussions (George Ojie-Ahamoijie, Faculty Focus, July 17, 2024): Challenging topics might be unpredictable to discuss in the classroom; however, creating the proper environment for these discussions can be gratifying, create self-awareness, improve thoughts, expand understanding and knowledge, and provide an avenue for collecting information.
Rethinking Respect (Jeff Spinner-Halev and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Inside Higher Ed, May 21, 2024): Colleges can help students cultivate civic respect – a value more easily affirmed than granted in our polarized climate.
How to Engage Students in Difficult Conversations When Consensus Is Impossible (Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed, July 2, 2024): Strategies for fostering understanding, empathy and respect in academic discussions.
How to Teach About Contentious Topics Like Israel and Hamas (Beth McMurtrie, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9, 2024): McMurtrie went looking for a course that tackles such a fraught topic, and found one at the Johns Hopkins University.
Image: Detail from the frontispiece of Ned Ward’s satirical poem Vulgus Brittanicus (1710)