SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Protests over the war in Gaza put colleges and universities on the back foot. Sit-ins and disruptions upended many campuses last year and prompted federal investigations of more than 60 schools over claims of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Though it may not seem like it at first, making an effort to talk and listen to those who you disagree with can have a lasting impact on your campus culture.

SIMON: That’s from an orientation video that’s now being used by some schools. And as GBH’s Kirk Carapezza reports, it’s part of a new effort by administrators to make conversation civil when students disagree.

KIRK CARAPEZZA, BYLINE: The video is called Talking Across Differences.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We limit ourselves when we only engage with similar world views.

CARAPEZZA: It’s produced by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a group promoting free speech.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: In this setting, we become less curious, more hostile to perceived differences and less reflective about our own internal biases.

CARAPEZZA: Dozens of colleges across the country are trying to avoid a repeat of what happened on a lot of campuses last spring.

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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Disclose. Divest. We will not stop. We will not rest.

CARAPEZZA: And one idea gaining traction – promoting more productive dialogue in and out of the classroom. At Emerson College in Boston, where over a hundred pro-Palestinian activists and students were arrested in April, administrators have launched EmersonTogether to foster what they describe as unity on campus. Clark University in Worcester, Mass., is holding workshops on the history of antisemitism. And Ohio Wesleyan University is offering civil discourse training to all students and staff.

RAJ VINNAKOTA: You can’t make assumptions about where students and faculty and administrators are.

CARAPEZZA: Raj Vinnakota leads a program called College Presidents for Civic Preparedness. And he says it’s all about promoting healthy dialogue.

VINNAKOTA: We need to take an affirmative posture to ensure that there is free inquiry and debate on our campuses. There’s still work to be done to get there.

CARAPEZZA: The work comes as colleges have increasingly become battlefields in the culture wars with critics – mostly Republicans and conservatives – saying they’re concerned professors and administrators are pushing political agendas. And higher ed leaders like Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, appear to be listening. She says if colleges don’t listen to their critics, they’ll be complicit in their own demise. And there’s even more at stake.

LYNN PASQUERELLA: Democracy fails. Students who receive an American education, a liberal education, are much more likely to resist authoritarian tendencies because they are confident in their viewpoints, even when those viewpoints are challenged.

CARAPEZZA: Professors, though, say getting students to talk at all these days is tough.

KATHY CRAMER: Students are afraid of each other.

CARAPEZZA: Kathy Cramer teaches political science at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where faculty have rolled out The Discussion Project, a training model now being used nationwide. Cramer says her students have adopted a philosophy of silence is safer.

CRAMER: They’re afraid to talk about politics, but it’s bigger than that, right? They’re afraid of saying something that will be posted online and go viral and make them feel bad about themselves. They’re afraid of being publicly shamed.

CARAPEZZA: Cramer says this all matters because, for better or worse, this generation of college students is going to be our future leaders.

For NPR News, I’m Kirk Carapezza, in Boston.

SIMON: And this story is part of a podcast called College Uncovered from GBH and The Hechinger Report.

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