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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

President's Wednesday Message


Well before I arrived, MCC began an initiative to address civility on campus:  Making Courtesy Common.  Essentially, the goal is to assure that the exchange of ideas at MCC occurs with respect. 

As a quick scan of cable talk and reality shows or a quick walk through some college hallways reveals, discourse outside and inside the academy can occasionally seem less than civil.  Lines between reasoned disagreement and personal attack that were once fairly clear now appear a little blurry.  For this reason, the goal of assuring civility and respect within academic environments is increasingly coming to the fore across the country.  If you start researching the many college-based initiatives, you’ll find that a familiar name pops up over and over:  George Washington.  As a teenager, Washington copied out his own commonplace book:  “110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior and Company and Conversation.”  Many of these rules seem a bit, well, unusual today, but the very first item in his book holds as true now as it did then:  “Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.”  In other words, simply be respectful of others. 

As author and professor Stephen L. Carter has noted, civility consists of “the sacrifices we make for the sake of living together.”  I would add, “and learning together.”  These sacrifices made in the name of community are actually rather small:  for example, we listen before speaking, appreciate differences, express gratitude for the work of others, reflect on the outcome of our actions.  None of this is terribly new or groundbreaking, but in the busyness and business of each day, in the crowd of a hallway or a classroom, in the heat of a conversation, we can become less mindful, less considerate. 

At its best, every academic environment challenges learners; the very process of learning makes us stretch, think through our positions, and see things anew.  Challenging environments are also highly charged ones, and our goal should be to keep this charge positive rather than negative.  So, I encourage you to take up the cause of Making Courtesy Common at MCC. 

Next week . . . a report from the fall League for Innovation in the Community College board meeting.

Anne Kress
President's Office
10/21/2009