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 2025-26:
- We have been equipping all new FAS TFs/TAs with pedagogical tools that foster open and constructive classrooms through our required Pedagogy in Practice Training.
- We have offered an introduction to civil discourse pedagogy for new ladder faculty at the New Faculty Institute and for non-ladder faculty at Navigating Harvard.
- We have established a civil discourse track within the new Bok Graduate Fellows program.
- We are holding workshops for the entire FAS community on Teaching Controversial Topics and Navigating Teaching Team Dynamics.
- We are consulting individually with faculty and instructional staff on their course policies, teaching practices, and teaching team management.
- We offer workshops tailored to the needs of specific departments, programs, and courses.
- We are launching a faculty lunch series on Civil Discourse and Teaching.
In this work, Bok partners with stakeholders across campus including: