“Excellence Unveiled at UNC with Chancellor Lee Roberts” is a series on 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Each episode shines a light on members of the Carolina community and the outstanding work they do. Listen to the full episode below, or read the complete transcript.
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In the third installment of Excellence Unveiled, listen to Jed Atkins — director of the School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) — speaking on how SCiLL serves as a place to not only educate future active participants of American democracy on their duties and responsibilities, but how to help them better represent, communicate and cooperate in the modern world.
Jed Atkins. Director and dean of the School of Civic Life and Leadership in the College of Arts and Sciences. (photo via UNC)
“SCiLL’s Mission for Civic Education, renews the promise of Carolina’s founders who established UNC as our first public university on the premise that the young people of our state would benefit from an education that looked to their happiness and help them understand their social duties in a pluralistic society.
Carolina’s founders understood that the human search for meaning was linked to living productive lives in a democracy. So, SCiLL promotes this vision by fostering a free speech culture that enables students to explore their own worldviews and those of others in a spirit of curiosity and charity by considering the best of what’s been thought and said together about human civic flourishing and by understanding the shared institutions and civic values that unites US citizens. Then, finally, by practicing the habits of speaking and working and and living alongside folks from very different backgrounds and perspectives.
Scholars and studies show that America is polarizing at a rate faster than any other major democracy. Increasingly, members of our two major political parties report describing members of their outgroup. Not as wrong about policy, but morally wicked or evil. Public trust in universities, like most of our institutions, are at a very low point. Both challenges come with opportunities for the university to help our citizens grow across our deepest divides. Carolina in general serves the people of a purple state. Carolina represents the political, religious, and moral views of our state. And our state represents the diverse political, religious, and moral views of our country. So, SCiLL aims to educate generations of thoughtful citizens who can speak and work and live in a pluralistic democracy and imagine the impact of such a civic education.
After 40 years, our students who are able to think and speak and act with those from different backgrounds, I think would change North Carolina, our country and the world.
The ideas in action is Carolina’s General Education Program, which many of our minor courses in SCiLL service. So an important requirement for us is Communications Beyond Carolina, which many of our civil discourse courses in our minor fulfill Professor Chris Lundberg’s “Think, Speak, Argue” course helps students develop skills and thinking critically and speaking more persuasively and negotiating conflicts more effectively. These are really critical skills for participating in our democracy today. Professor John Rose will offer a course how to think in an age of political polarization, which helps students speak across and about our most divisive social and political issues, and do so in a spirit of friendship and charity and humility. This is a nationally-renowned course that he started when he was at Duke. We hired him away from Duke and it has been exported to 70 different universities around the country.”
(feature photo via unc.edu)
The Carolina Center for Public Service works with community partners to make a positive difference for North Carolinians, and is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year! Click here for more about the CCPS!
Excellence Unveiled: Jed Atkins and the School of Civic Life and Leadership Chapelboro.com.
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