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Gift Link: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/univers...k51krrrotjp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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The School of Civic Life and Leadership will offer three courses this fall, including a primer on the American political tradition and a class on the fundamentals of civil debate. Students will be introduced to materials like the Federalist Papers, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and philosophical predecessors including Aristotle and Montesquieu. The goal is creating an environment where, as dean Jed Atkins puts it, “students can disagree better.”
The program’s launch is a victory over the progressive monolith that tried to prevent it. Many UNC faculty revolted last year when the Board of Trustees announced the plan for the school without first seeking the professoriate’s permission. UNC’s accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, even suggested the trustees’ action could prompt some kind of reprimand. But UNC went ahead anyway, and give the trustees credit for refusing to be intimidated.
Mr. Atkins joined UNC from Duke, where he ran that school’s Civil Discourse Project, a program designed to create debate among friends on campus. Duke students were also given an option to live in a civil-discourse dorm community, which made respectful debate into its own campus affinity group. Perhaps UNC could replicate that arrangement. ..."
"...
The School of Civic Life and Leadership will offer three courses this fall, including a primer on the American political tradition and a class on the fundamentals of civil debate. Students will be introduced to materials like the Federalist Papers, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and philosophical predecessors including Aristotle and Montesquieu. The goal is creating an environment where, as dean Jed Atkins puts it, “students can disagree better.”
The program’s launch is a victory over the progressive monolith that tried to prevent it. Many UNC faculty revolted last year when the Board of Trustees announced the plan for the school without first seeking the professoriate’s permission. UNC’s accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, even suggested the trustees’ action could prompt some kind of reprimand. But UNC went ahead anyway, and give the trustees credit for refusing to be intimidated.
Mr. Atkins joined UNC from Duke, where he ran that school’s Civil Discourse Project, a program designed to create debate among friends on campus. Duke students were also given an option to live in a civil-discourse dorm community, which made respectful debate into its own campus affinity group. Perhaps UNC could replicate that arrangement. ..."
