{"id":55300,"date":"2019-01-10T13:02:59","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T20:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=55300"},"modified":"2019-01-10T10:57:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T17:57:05","slug":"dunns-tedxmilehigh-talk-highlights-need-for-diversity-of-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=55300","title":{"rendered":"Dunn&#8217;s TEDxMileHigh talk highlights need for diversity of thought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"740\" height=\"417\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9Fv1Ihj7pu4?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Josh Dunn, chair and professor of the Political Science Department, and director of the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual at UCCS, called on the TEDxMileHigh attendees to challenge themselves to different views in &#8220;What universities missed in their fight for diversity\u201d Dec. 1 at Denver&#8217;s Bellco Theatre. His talk was among the 18 speakers for the 2018 theme \u201cReset.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile our colleges and universities make every effort to increase the representation of racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, there is another kind of diversity we often forget: viewpoint diversity,\u201d Dunn said in his opening remarks. \u201cIn today\u2019s increasingly polarized political climate, having people on campus with different perspectives is more important than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dunn, the co-author of \u201cPassing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University\u201d with Jon Shields, said that less than 13 percent of college faculty identify as conservative, and in the humanities and social sciences, it\u2019s five percent. In research for the book, they interviewed 153 conservative faculty who shared they weren&#8217;t comfortable sharing their political ideology for fear they wouldn\u2019t be granted tenure or experience harassment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIdeally, students would learn the best arguments of both the left and the right, and not the watered-down and inflammatory versions you hear on cable news or read on social media,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cBut today, it\u2019s quite possible to receive an education, and an elite one at that, and never be exposed to major conservative ideas. Ideas that have, for better or worse, profoundly influenced American politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dunn connected the current political climate in Washington, D.C., to the same shift on college campuses. Colleges have long been a place for respectful discussion and often are the first place where students hear different views. But disruptive protests and threats of violence against students and teachers across the political spectrum have increased in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is what\u2019s happening on our campuses, places where the next generation of leaders is learning to interact with others,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cIf it\u2019s happening there, can we be surprised at what\u2019s happening in Washington, in corporate board rooms and or even our own neighborhoods?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dunn shared the friendship of Robert George and Cornel West, two professors on opposite ends of the political spectrum, who taught a course together and toured college campuses. \u201cThe only sad part of their story is that it is so rare,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Dunn also outlined the danger of confirmation bias, the natural tendency to seek information that we already agreed with, and echo chambers that make confirmation bias worse. In a study of citizens from Boulder and Colorado Springs, two cities historically on different sides of political issues, researchers found that when groups of people discussed issues only within their communities, their views became more extreme.<\/p>\n<p>He encouraged the development of a Fulbright-style program among universities to expose faculty and students to other viewpoints. A program at CU Boulder, the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy, already exists. The Heterodox Academy, with thousands of faculty members, believes that viewpoint diversity makes its members better scholars.<\/p>\n<p>Dunn closed his presentation with the \u201codd couple\u201d relationship between Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Like George and West, they toured the country to debate the issues. When Scalia died, Ginsburg wrote about her \u201cbest buddy\u201d and when they disagreed, it made her opinions better because Scalia would point out the weak spots in her argument.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all need friends like that. We can\u2019t really do our jobs as citizens without them,\u201d Dunn said in closing. \u201cIn the end, what happens in the ivory tower doesn\u2019t stay in the ivory tower because today\u2019s student is tomorrow\u2019s leader. A diversity of ideas will make us better leaders, neighbors and voters, but only if we have a chance to hear them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Josh Dunn, chair and professor of the Political Science Department, and director of the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual at UCCS, called on the TEDxMileHigh attendees to challenge themselves to different views in &#8220;What universities missed in their fight for diversity\u201d Dec. 1 at Denver&#8217;s Bellco Theatre. <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=55300\" title=\"Dunn&#8217;s TEDxMileHigh talk highlights need for diversity of thought\">(More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":55560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,47],"tags":[53,191,86,192],"class_list":["post-55300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-education-and-public-affairs","tag-academic-affairs","tag-center-for-the-study-of-government-and-the-individual","tag-college-of-letters-arts-and-sciences","tag-department-of-political-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/0.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-enW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55300"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55510,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55300\/revisions\/55510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}