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ArtsComm dean sets campus up to maintain civility in heated times

Pamela Barnett
Pamela Barnett, dean of the School of the Arts and Communication

The School of the Arts and Communication has launched an initiative called Communication for the Common Good. Led by Dean Pamela Barnett, it is a series of lectures and workshops aimed at giving the TCNJ community a framework for discussing difficult issues in a civil way.

For Barnett, fostering non-violent communication on hot topics has been her passion and expertise for decades. She has published and presented on how to teach about and foster discussion about race, and most recently she wrote about the need for academics to model empathy and non-violent communication about the war in the Middle East. She has facilitated transformational intergroup dialogue programs at a variety of institutions and is a student of French Psychologist Dr. Charles Rojzman, a leader in conflict resolution in war-torn locales.

While the series is an ArtsComm initiative, Barnett is collaborating with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences to offer some timely and engaging events. Here she answers a few questions about why she feels the program is particularly important today.

Q: Please give some context for why you started this series. In your opinion, what’s the state of public discourse in the U.S. right now?

BARNETT: We have always been a nation of debate, but I don’t think we’re in the habit of talking to each other anymore. A lot of political discourse is happening on social media outlets where people are speaking to others who think exactly as they do. We’re all consulting our own news sources, our liberal sources and conservative sources. We are speaking in echo chambers, and a lot of what is said about “the other side” is pretty disrespectful. People are shouting at each other and not listening to each other. It’s toxic.

If there’s any way we’re going to get closer to a fuller truth, it means we’re going to have to be talking to each other. And a college is an important place to do that. In the School of the Arts and Communication, our mission is to transform lives by fostering creativity, communication, connections, and careers. We felt like we had a responsibility to intervene in some way and to help our college community have more informed — and hopefully more civil and respectful — communication.

Q: What tools might people need to make sure they know how to discuss issues civilly?

BARNETT: People need a framework for distinguishing conflict from violence. And when I say violence, I am talking about four things: when we attack each other, shame each other, guilt each other, or completely dismiss each other. Conflict can be passionate, loud, or uncomfortable. If a group of diverse freethinking individuals come together, they won’t all agree about everything. I want people to learn that conflict is okay; we don’t need to avoid it, but we must be aware of when it becomes violent. And so the invitation is to come to conflict and hear each other out. This initiative provides spaces to learn that and to model what that looks like.

Q: What does common good mean in this series?

BARNETT: It’s the process of coming together with people of different interests and different understandings to try to figure out what’s best for the community. We’re not always going to agree on that, but we don’t have a chance if we don’t try to engage each other around the question.

To date, the Communication for the Common Good series has hosted a presidential debate watch party with the political science department and has brought journalist Jay Rosen to Mayo Concert Hall to discuss how to cover elections in a more democratic way.

Up next on November 8, the TCNJ orchestra will perform Aaron Copland’s, Lincoln Portrait, with excerpts from the Gettysburg Address to encourage unity in the wake of a contentious election. Interim Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences Chris Fisher will narrate. 


— Kara Pothier MAT ’08

Contact

School of the Arts and Communication
Art and Interactive Multimedia Building
The College of New Jersey
P.O. Box 7718
2000 Pennington Rd.
Ewing, NJ 08628

609.771.2278

artscomm@tcnj.edu

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