We live in a cultural moment that is fraught with division and ideological war. It’s a moment where the civic and moral duty has become to act with contempt and hatred for one’s ideological and political enemies. Civic duty has become noticeably uncivil. Perhaps nowhere is this trend more prevalent than at universities. In a space where the young adults who will lead and play foundational roles in forming culture are growing and developing, these universities are not places for struggle and engagement with important and opposing ideas, but places where a status quo is built, strengthened, and forcefully kept.

However, there are notable efforts for renewal in important cultural and political spheres. Dr. John Rose is a professor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Civic Life and Leadership, a program that works to cultivate civil discourse and engagement with the fundamental questions of life. Dr. Rose teaches classes that cultivate student engagement across differences, exploring some of the most controversial debates in the modern world with an eye toward developing love and charity in his students. Dr. Rose is an important figure in the civil discourse movement and his Wall Street Journal opinion, “How I liberated my college classroom”, detailed the success and importance of his efforts to cultivate charitable dialogue amidst controversial questions in his classroom at his previous institution, Duke University.