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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

The MCC Civility Project


As I was reading through the Monroe Doctrine these last few weeks, I was struck by the incidents listed in the police blotter and how most of them relate to acts of incivility on campus.  If you have never picked up a Doctrine, the police blotter lists the date and a one-sentence description of incidents that Public Safety responds to.  In the particular issue I focused on, from 11/1/11, there are 13 acts of reported incivility out of the 18 incidents listed (and the other 5 could be counted as uncivil in some way, as students blatantly disregard campus policy).  Right outside our offices, in our parking lots, in our classrooms, in our residence halls, incivility is evident.

Lately, I have started to believe that students feel that incivility is acceptable.  I don’t know how many times I hear “well, she disrespected me first,” or “so and so did that, therefore, I did this.”  It leads me to think that incivility is based upon an apparent lack of accountability for one’s own actions – that because someone else acted first, it’s ok to threaten another student, or call up and harass a college employee.  Sometimes I find myself getting caught up in my own feelings about it – how could a student bite another student and think that was an appropriate response?  What life experience taught them to react in that manner?  The truth is, we may never know.

BUT - we can do something about it, and something simple:  We can educate our students about civility.  We talk to them about picking up their own garbage in the Marketplace, smoking in appropriate areas on campus, and treating others with kindness, even if it is such a small thing as to hold the door open for another person.  We can lay out ground rules for cell phone usage, and provide resources for where students should go if someone acts out toward them instead of choosing to retaliate, or where to go if they need financial resources instead of stealing.  We can start random acts of kindness on campus and ask each other to pass them on.  We can be good role models.  How many classrooms have a discussion about civility and what that means? How many student organizations hear about civility from their advisors?  There is not a class or a job in any student’s future that does not rely on individual accountability and treating others respectfully as a tool for success.

In the coming months, if you look around, you will see the workings of MCC’s Civility Project.  There will be weekly articles about civility and things you can do to promote it in the Tribune, there will be poster campaigns around campus, pop-up programs that question behavior and challenge student thinking, there will be speakers, a week of events called Enough is Enough, and a bunch of other happenings in an on-going campaign to combat acts of incivility and promote pride and ownership of MCC amongst the student, staff and faculty. 

I (as more than likely this person you have never heard of), challenge you to help and to do what you do best – educate our students.  Include civility in your meetings, your classrooms, and in student employee training.  Let’s partner to combat a growing trend and commit to overcoming what is slowly becoming normal.  Let’s start today.

Amy Greer
Civility Committee - The Civility Project
11/16/2011