As we look ahead to fall semester, the 2024 presidential election looms large. While many college courses do not engage electoral politics directly, the election will certainly affect our campus and permeate classroom and community spaces in ways we may not be able to anticipate. Here, we offer some resources to help us collectively think through and prepare for the fall.
While elections can be stressful, this Jed Foundation article argues that civic engagement is good for youth mental health. The American Association of Colleges and Universities provides resources on Elections as Teachable Moments. These include ways to leverage an election to enhance political education, civic participation, campus dialogue, and more. In short, involvement in the election or political action can empower students, help them feel connected, and promote wellbeing.
Many campuses were unprepared for the 2016 election and its aftermath. One study found that 25% of college students experienced significant distress. Serious racist incidents, student protests, and other conflicts shook some campuses. To help colleges be more proactive in 2024, the Constructive Dialogue Institute developed a 2024 Election Guidebook, available for download, with tools for faculty, staff, and administrators to maintain campus community during the election season. If you want a short version, check out this article on Inside Higher Ed that distills some of the guidebook’s key points.
Rather than see the election as a singular event, we should instead consider it as one of many issues that requires our ongoing work to cultivate a culture of free expression, dialogue, and inclusivity on our campus. Toward that end, you may want to revisit some of the materials from our January 2024 “Creating Campus for All” retreat, including the PEN Campus Free Speech Guide and the Campus For All Tip Sheets that PEN America shared after the workshop. PEN America also has some resources on Media Literacy and Disinformation that you may find helpful or want to share with others.
Election seasons can pose challenges, as the issues and outcomes may feel deeply personal and high stakes to many members of our community – ourselves, our colleagues, our students, and our neighbors. How might we get ready to support our community this fall?
- Encourage students to use our Counseling Services
- Remember that faculty and staff can use the college’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental health support (You can find the info you need here)
- Election Wellness tip sheet (from UC Berkeley)
- Self Care Resources (from the Jed Foundation)
Perhaps most significant are the ways that we work together to nurture a supportive and inclusive educational community that is generous and compassionate. Legal scholar Lara Hope Schwartz asserts in her new book, Try to Love the Questions, that listening generously and allowing people to set boundaries are critical aspects of open inquiry. Her ideas are helpful as we think about the election, or more generally as we engage with controversial topics on campus and in our classrooms. She writes:
[T]he fact that open-mindedness has generally benefited higher education does not create a duty of every student to be open to hearing every argument. Each of us has the autonomy to set limits – a freedom closely connected to our First Amendment freedoms of expression and association, and to our academic freedom to pursue the subjects of our choice. Listening generously should include treating people’s assertion of boundaries with the same generosity we show their expression. This is particularly true because the burdens and challenges of our system of free inquiry are unevenly distributed.
For example: in the coming years, constitutional law students will discuss the scope and ramifications of recent Supreme Court decisions – including a 2022 decision in which the Court overruled the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade and ruled that there is no federal constitutional right to abortion. For some students, these conversations will be more than theoretical. They will involve the loss of tangible rights and the question of whether they will lose additional legal rights they currently have (such as the right to marry). These conversations will carry unequal burdens.
In fact, when it comes to law and policy, almost every conversation worth having will affect someone. Take gas prices, which might sound like a neutral subject. High fuel costs will disproportionately affect people with less disposable income, rural people who must travel long distances in their day-to-day life, and those who rely on trucks or heavy machinery for their livelihood (such as farmers and contractors). Almost all politics implicate identity in some way – the question is whose identity, and how.
I will not refrain from holding conversations about hotly contested issues. But I encourage students to practice generosity when their peers – or others – set boundaries for conversation, particularly outside of class. I also encourage everyone to communicate compassionately and be open to feedback about the impact their speech has on others.
I have heard some otherwise well-intentioned people say that students who don’t want to engage in tough conversations don’t belong in college. But because many contentious conversations affect students unequally, I strongly disagree. Transforming open inquiry from a goal to a rule means treating students who have more at stake in a conversation as if they are somehow less successful at inquiry – when in fact it might cost them more. Listening generously to others’ good-faith statements about their boundaries doesn’t shut down inquiry; it offers us an opportunity to better understand how important issues affect people, which itself can be a valuable learning experience. (pp. 121-123)
Through our ongoing campus collaboration with PEN America, Schwartz will be facilitating a campus free expression colloquium with students in October; we’ll share more about the workshop and her book in the coming weeks. Her book does a nice job of balancing inquiry and inclusivity by reminding the reader that we’re not orientated toward issues in equal ways. Some have more at stake than others, and we’re not always able to engage in inquiry when a topic is deeply personal. These are useful reminders –perhaps even touchstone concepts that we can bring to our work on campus. Generosity means listening with an open heart, as well as respecting boundaries and allowing others to disengage as needed.