On May 11, 2026, researchers, educators, practitioners, and campus partners gathered at the Hinckley Institute for the Civic Discourse Working Group Town Hall, hosted in collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for Research.
The event brought together participants from across campus to explore how the University of Utah can advance research, teaching, public programming, and community engagement focused on constructive disagreement, civic dialogue, and collaborative problem solving.
The Civic Discourse Working Group investigates the causes of harmful political polarization, tests evidence-based strategies for addressing partisan misperceptions, and examines both the virtues and challenges of disagreement. The group also develops structured experiences, ranging from classroom-based debates to facilitated community conversations, designed to reduce hostility, deepen mutual understanding, and enrich the educational and civic lives of participants.
The Town Hall was organized as a round robin discussion, with participants rotating through three focused conversation areas:
- Debate and Dialogue in Learning Environments and Interventions
- Civic Language: Reducing Division and Problem Solving
- Collaborative Conflict Resolution
Across the discussions, participants identified opportunities to connect existing expertise, resources, and programs across campus. Several conversations focused on building bridges with the Health Sciences Campus and exploring how research-driven civic discourse programs could be implemented more broadly throughout the university.
The working group aims to unite and amplify several campus initiatives, including the John R. Park Debate Society, Center for Discourse and Debate, Debate Across the Curriculum, the S.J. Quinney College of Law Dean’s Debate Series, and Brave Conversations. Together, these efforts contribute to a broader campus ecosystem committed to understanding, modeling, and creating opportunities to practice constructive disagreement.
By convening colleagues from multiple disciplines and areas of practice, the Town Hall marked an important step toward strengthening collaboration around civic discourse at the U. The conversations underscored the university’s role as a place where research, education, and public engagement can come together to address complex civic challenges and cultivate more productive disagreement across differences.
