The challenge: How to make classrooms havens of inclusive excellence, places of civility and respect where students listen to one another and honor the diversity of people and experiences around them.
Books have been written. Campus engagement programs have been launched. Higher education experts continue to share solutions.
Faculty and staff from throughout the UW System examined the question collaboratively Friday, the final day of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s and UW System’s “Civility in Everyday Life” workshop.
Chuku Omegbu, a third-year UW Oshkosh business student, offered her own straight forward prescription for inclusive excellence during a special panel of students of color that addressed an audience of about 60 instructors and UW system campus staff.
In the classroom, read a student’s facial expressions, Omegbu advised. “Go with your gut,” she said, urging awareness of and sensitivity to the isolation students of color may feel in class. But don’t hesitate to ask a question or invite a response – it’s empowering, Omegbu said. And, most importantly, never underestimate the value of taking time to truly understand a student of color’s personal experience.
“The teachers can connect with the student and know that student’s background.” Omegbu said. “… There’s a way to make them feel comfortable and that they are sharing something the class can benefit from.”
Workshop coordinators hope that guidance keeps the everyday work of promoting civil, often difficult, dialogue alive in classrooms, promoting listening and open minds while honoring diversity. Day Two of Civility In Everyday Life concluded with a series of sessions designed to sow new seeds of inclusivity and civility throughout UW System campuses.
Over the course of the two-day workshop, participants heard P.M. Forni, an award-winning professor and author at Johns Hopkins University and co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project; Kathleen Hull, director of the Byrne First-Year Seminars and co-founder of Project Civility at Rutgers—New Brunswick; Robbie Routenberg, program manager of the Program on Intergroup Relations at the University of Michigan; and Libby Roderick who has facilitated the University of Alaska Anchorage’s “Start Talking: A Handbook for Engaging Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education, born out of the Ford Foundation’s “Difficult Dialogues” initiative.
The concentration as the civility workshop’s conclusion neared was on taking what was learned to home campuses. For Bob Oehler, director of faciliites at UW Stevens Point, the goal is promoting a culture of openness and dialogue in his department, the largest on campus.
“My big challenge is not to get our staff not to talk,” Oehler said Friday, part of Roderick’s “Start Talking” Friday morning session. “What we are trying to do is keep the conversation going.”
Dozens of UW System campus administrators, faculty, staff and students from an array of programs, departments and colleges attended the workshop.
Donovan Johnson was part of the three-student panel with Omegbu. A third-year human services major with a minor in African-American studies, Johnson said the biggest takeaway he hopes instructors will carry with them is an understanding that they take extra time to put students of color who might feel a bit like “outcasts” at ease and foster classroom environments they can will consider educational homes.
“What people can take back the most is ‘be welcoming,’” Johnson said.
Read more:
- Workshop explores fostering civility in classroom, campus, community
- Civility in Everyday Life: A Compass for Higher Education
- Forni: Why be civil? ‘Being good is good for you’
- UWO civility workshop sparks community initiative
- UWO to host ‘Civility in Everyday Life’ workshop
- Snapshots: Civility in Everyday Life Workshop