Civil Discourse
Encouraging open and constructive dialogue on campus is a key University priority. The Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group’s Report (2024) urges instructors to “cultivate habits of mind, social norms, and pedagogical practices that promote reasoned disagreement, engage a spectrum of ideas, and facilitate robust intellectual exchanges.”
To apply these goals in the classroom, it is useful for instructors to cultivate intellectual virtues like curiosity and epistemic humility. The Bok Center supports instructors in building open and rigorous classrooms rooted in these intellectual virtues by centering trust, creativity, and respect.
In 2026-27:
We are equipping all new FAS TFs/TAs with pedagogical tools that foster open and constructive classrooms through our required Pedagogy in Practice Training.
- We are equipping select returning TFs/TAs with pedagogical tools to teach controversial topics and navigate teaching team dynamics as part of our first-ever all-TF/TA training.
- We are training all undergraduate Course Assistants (CAs) to understand how to function effectively as a member of course teams and uphold professional roles and boundaries.
- We continue to offer workshops tailored to the needs of specific departments, programs, and courses across the FAS and in other Harvard schools (e.g. GSD and HDS).
- We train and work with select Bok Graduate Fellows on civil discourse pedagogy and how it applies to courses and TF teaching in their home departments.
- We are inaugurating the second year of our successful faculty lunch series (for ladder and non-ladder faculty in the FAS) on Civil Discourse and Teaching.
- We are continuing to partner with University partners, such as the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, on projects related to Civil Discourse.
In this work, Bok partners with stakeholders across campus including: