Spirited debate, engaging conversation, and intellectual exploration are central features of the college campus experience. Students should be encouraged to learn with and from each other, respectfully challenging each other’s arguments and critically exploring a range of topics. But in today’s polarized political climate, conversation and dialogue across differences can often be difficult to navigate.

To help campuses and students facilitate these difficult conversations effectively, we’ve compiled the following resources:

Guides for Facilitating Effective Dialogue and Discussion

• The Better Arguments Project key principles and resources guides
• Campus Compact and Sustained Dialogue Institute’s Dialogue Resources for Higher Education
• Essential Partners guides for facilitating dialogue in general and on specific topics
• Everyday Democracy discussion guides for community change
• Heterodox Academy’s “Encountering Controversial Ideas” and “Intentional Dialogue” guides
• Institute for Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE) at the American Association of Colleges and Universities, “Facilitating Political Discussions: A Facilitator Training Workshop Guide”
• IDHE Issue Discussion Guides
• IDHE Report: Readiness for Discussing Democracy in Supercharged Political Times by Nancy Thomas
• National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Dialogue and Deliberation Methods
• National Institute for Civil Discourse sample syllabi for teaching about civil discourse
• PEN America’s How Faculty Can Encourage Dialogue on Campus
• UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement (Center) Fellows’ project by Lara Schwartz and Andrea Brenner: “Let Freedom (And Respect) Ring: Fostering Civil Discourse and Free Speech in the Classroom and Beyond

For Students

• Bipartisan Policy Center’s Campus Free Expression Project: Six Strategies for Conversing on Campus
• BridgeUSA is a national student-led, campus-based organization that seeks to engage young people in civic life by promoting constructive dialogue and a solution-oriented political culture. 
• FIRE/First Amendment Watch “Talking Across Differences” module
• PEN America’s How Students Can Encourage Dialogue on Campus

Specific Programs in Higher Education 

The examples below highlight campus programs which teach and facilitate dialogue across differences. 

• American University’s Project on Civil Discourse
• Claremont McKenna College CARE Center
• James Madison University Civic Center’s Facilitating Difficult Election Conversations Guide
• National Institute for Civil Discourse: Linking Civility Work on College Campuses
  • Kansas State University Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy
  • UC Berkeley Center on Civility and Democratic Engagement
  • University of New Hampshire “New Hampshire Listens” Program
  • University of San Diego Institute for Civil Civic Engagement
  • University of Virginia Center for Politics National Civility Project
• “Stanford Students Put Deliberative Democracy Into Action”
• UChicago Law School Dialogue Roundtables
• University of Colorado CU Dialogues Program
• University of Connecticut Democracy and Dialogues Initiative Encounters Series