Difficult Dialogues Initiative

Projects / University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC

 
Goals & Objectives

The overall goal of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative is to enhance the intellectual atmosphere and augment the institutional opportunities for “difficult dialogues” throughout our campus.  The purpose is not to change people’s beliefs.  Rather, we intend to create and institutionalize models of dialogue based on mutual respect, tolerance, and an informed exchange of ideas and beliefs.  We believe that this outcome will enhance both the likelihood and the quality of thoughtful discussions, inside and outside our classrooms, that allow questions of faith and personal moral conviction a respectful and responsible hearing within an academic community dedicated to free inquiry.

Too often, matters of religious belief and academic inquiry seem to fall prey to the “clash of cultures” binaries that spur students and faculty to debate with the goal of trouncing one another in verbal sparring matches.  While UNC-Chapel Hill in no way opposes healthy debate on issues, the prevalent notion of debate as yielding a winner and a loser is not a productive way to engage questions about the compatibility of academic freedom and religious conviction on our campus.  Instead of debate, therefore, Carolina’s Difficult Dialogues Initiative seeks the following outcomes:

1. Freedom of expression for a wide range of viewpoints;
2. Respectful attention to a wide range of viewpoints;
3. Intellectually serious analysis and defense of multiple viewpoints; and
4. A search for common ground, without ignoring genuine differences, among diverse viewpoints.

The DDI will seek common ground among differing viewpoints and, through appropriate forums and media, share findings throughout the campus community and with audiences in the wider academic and public spheres.  We have learned from the controversies we have encountered in Carolina’s history that a university cannot be content simply to espouse principles of free inquiry, open discussion, and support of diversity.  Nor should we wait for fresh controversies to inflame passions to the point that genuine dialogue has an even harder time obtaining a hearing.  UNC-Chapel Hill believes that, as the nation’s oldest public institution, we have a historic obligation and opportunity to be proactive rather than reactive.  With the support of the Ford Foundation we will create models by which productive dialogue and inquiry can co-exist on our campus.  Consistent with our responsibility to our many publics, we will also make available to the widest possible audience the outcomes and best practices of the programs that we create under the auspices of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative.
  
The UNC-Chapel Hill Difficult Dialogues Initiative has four separate objectives in order to achieve our goal of productive and informed dialogue on campus:

Objective 1:  Ground the DDI through development of baseline information describing current understanding of the relationship of religious belief and intellectual inquiry among Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff.

Objective 2:  Provide faculty development and training to help faculty facilitate constructive discussions of controversial issues in the classroom.

Objective 3.  Renovate and enrich the UNC-Chapel Hill curriculum to incorporate more opportunities for faculty and students to discuss diverse opinions, scientific inquiries, religious and spiritual beliefs, and ethics in a respectful environment.

Objective 4. Develop extra-curricular student life activities that stimulate informed discussions of controversial subjects and encourage the exchange of ideas and beliefs in a mutually respectful atmosphere. <Back