Civic Engagement

What’s On the Ballot? The Future of Elections

October 31, 2022 by Michael S. Roth '78

As we are about to head into November, we are one week from Election Day on November 8. I trust by now Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff have a plan for voting, and I imagine many of you are working on behalf of a candidate or issue of your choice. Readers of this blog know I believe that learning through civic practices is a crucial dimension of a liberal education, and we are doing what we can to bring the educative dimensions of democracy to our campus (and to other campuses). This is an urgent project.

A few weeks ago, I published an essay in The Boston Globe about the importance of these midterm elections. I cross-post it here. So much is at stake right now. You can make a difference.

College mission: Encourage diverse views but protect democracy

This fall many college leaders will struggle with how to navigate an intense election season in which the polarization of the country is seemingly everywhere. Higher education officials usually try to maintain their nonpartisan status, both for legal reasons (as employees of tax-exempt not-for-profits) and for educational ones. Our job as administrators and teachers is not to tell students what to think about politics but to help them formulate their own views while considering the best available information and most thoughtful perspectives.

In the summer of 2016, I broke from this tradition because the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump represented not just a political choice for teachers and students but a clear threat to our educational mission. At the time, I wrote that he was “using the tools characteristic of demagogues and fascists to do the only thing that really matters to him: gaining power. He will say anything that he thinks will help him win, and there is no telling what he will do if he is successful.”

We now know more about that. We know that Trump encouraged a coup in the wake of his electoral defeat and that he continues to advocate for the dismantling of our democracy. He is backing candidates who proudly claim that if they lose the election, it has to have been rigged, candidates who want to hinder from voting those unlikely to support them. And how can we not be alarmed by the apparent readiness of Trump and his allies to remove from the federal workforce anyone who disagrees with their approach to America First. As Trump said at a rally last March, “We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States.” Known as “Schedule F,” it means tens of thousands of people could be in danger of losing their jobs if Trump is elected in 2024. Positions of power would be filled not on the basis of competence but of fidelity.

This is not about policy differences but about the mechanisms and values of our representative system. And that’s why educators at all levels must speak out to defend democracy. We must also speak out to defend those who have already become the victims of creeping authoritarianism. Vulnerable poor and working people, members of marginalized groups, and immigrants are already being harassed by would-be strongmen and their cronies. Texas and Florida are only the most obvious examples where governors emulate Trump’s demagogue playbook by scapegoating trans people and migrants to energize the base emotions of some of their strongest supporters. After the election of 2016, some campus leaders vowed to protect immigrants who felt threatened by Trump’s election, and now we must remind politicians that schools and colleges have a responsibility to educate all students.

As we defend the processes of democracy and the most vulnerable members of our community, we must also protect the rights of all students on campus. This includes ensuring that those who identify as conservatives are not further marginalized by our efforts to protect the democratic process. We must not confuse the rejection of authoritarianism with a partisan suite of policy judgments about domestic and foreign affairs. The defense of democracy always includes the defense of one’s right to express views other than the majority’s. We must not encourage campus authoritarianism just because there seems to be a local consensus about what it means to be progressive.

A broad, inclusive college education is so valuable because through it we learn to reason together. We learn to engage in ongoing conversations with people different from ourselves and whose views we might find objectionable. This serves the country as a whole by creating habits of open-minded discussion and practiced, free inquiry. The authoritarianism we see growing in the United States and around the world pulls apart the very fabric of liberal education and would make it impossible for us to continue this work.

We in higher education must energetically cultivate democratic values—including freedom of expression, rights to representation, and the protection of the vulnerable—at home on our campuses. And we must take a stand against the would-be strongmen who threaten these values in our country and beyond. As educators, we should encourage our students and colleagues to join us in fighting for basic democratic rights. And should that fight be lost in America and the capacity to reason together be rendered pointless (or even persecuted), what then becomes of a genuine education? The nature and mission of our colleges and universities will change fundamentally. That so many are demanding just that should be warning enough.

What’s On the Ballot? Reproductive Health Care

October 17, 2022 by Michael S. Roth '78

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, many have come to recognize that the elections on November 8 can have an important impact on how women are able to access reproductive health care across the land. Some candidates aim to impose total bans on abortion, and others want to leave the choice entirely in the hands of the pregnant person and their doctor. As a university president, it is not my role to tell people what to think about the complexities of this issue. But it is my role to remind Wesleyans of the importance of learning about the issue and of participating in public discussions of it.

In this regard, I’d like to remind everyone of a campus event sponsored by FGSS and Wesleyan Reproductive Advocacy & Legislation this Thursday, October 20 at noon in Judd Hall, room 116. Faculty and students will gather to discuss their views on access to reproductive health care.

I’d also like to remind everyone that it’s not too late to apply for mini-grants to support work on political campaigns and voter registration efforts. Learn more about the JCCP Political Engagement Fund and apply online.

Elections in a Month – What’s On the Ballot? Democracy

October 10, 2022October 9, 2022 by Michael S. Roth '78

I was in North Carolina this week, talking about civic engagement at Duke and at the University of North Carolina. At Duke, I met with faculty and students who have been part of the Sanford School of Public Policy and DukeEngage, programs that promote student learning through practices in the public sphere. At UNC I was part of a panel on civic engagement and intellectual diversity, subjects about which I’ve often written.

What really came home to me when I was talking with students, teachers and other community members was just how important these midterm elections are. There are people on the ballot in North Carolina and elsewhere around the country who are determined to change the rules of democracy so as to cement power and privilege to prevent further democratic change. This means people who will restrict voting rights, roll back gains made by women and minorities, and undermine the basic freedoms that are essential to our educational and electoral systems. All elections matter, but these midterms are crucial.

That’s why we are promoting mini-grants for students who want to travel to states where there are especially competitive races. You can get travel funds to work over Fall Break in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida… Wherever you think you can make a difference for the candidate or ballot measure of your choice. Who or what you support, of course, is entirely up to you.

Please have a plan to vote on November 8, and let’s do what we can to help others make their voices heard.

Launching the Class of 2026

August 29, 2022 by Michael S. Roth '78

Such an exciting week at Wesleyan as we welcome members of the Class of 2026 and help them launch their college journeys. Meeting new people from around the world, discovering new perspectives, and hearing about experiences so different from their own—this is just the beginning. Every year I hear from students who get to know people they never would have expected to meet and others who discover folks who share so many of their interests.

In these first weeks of the semester, people will notice there is a lot of old-fashioned construction on campus. You can’t miss the work on the Public Affairs Center and the new art gallery next to Olin Library, but you might not know that underneath there are new pipes that will dramatically increase our energy efficiency. Up at Long Lane (behind the softball field), you can see the new building for the Neighborhood Preschool, and before long we hope to begin construction on the new Life Sciences Building. Read more about this work in The Connection.

But for most students, new or old, it’s not the buildings that matter most at the beginning of the semester. It’s the opportunity to learn by forming new friendships and indulging their curiosity through the breadth of Wesleyan’s open curriculum. There are so many exciting things to study and people to learn from that I hesitate to highlight any in particular, but here are some that students might not discover immediately on their own as they launch their academic careers:

Students beginning their college careers this fall are doing so at a time of great turbulence in the world. From the brutal invasion of Ukraine to the ongoing climate crisis, from the lingering COVID-19 pandemic to the threats against democracy…. These are very demanding times. Reading the news, I am often filled with despair at the challenges that face us. But when I meet the students beginning their journeys at Wesleyan, I can’t help but feel more hopeful. By learning to work together, we have a chance to defend democracy, promote public health, and create culture peace not culture war. We can reject the polarization that often stymies our political system and embrace discovery in an atmosphere of intellectual diversity and compassionate solidarity. Pragmatic liberal education brings joyful resolve into our lives at Wesleyan and far beyond the campus.

Best wishes for the start of the semester!

Civic Engagement Has Never Been More Important

January 7, 2021 by Michael S. Roth '78

Like so many, yesterday I watched with horror as a mob invaded the Capitol Building, hoping to stop the certification of November’s election results. Inside Higher Ed asked if I would write a quick response to what I was seeing, and I immediately thought of the Bob Dylan song, “Idiot Wind.”

“Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull, from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.” The words of the Bob Dylan song echo in my mind as I watch rioters marauding in Washington, D.C., playing make-believe politics in their cloud cuckoo world of conspiracies and fantasies.

Though despite yesterday’s stunning turn of events, I wrote, I do see glimmers of hope:

That said, I was surprised, if not quite stunned, when I got up in the middle of last night and saw the results from Georgia. I know how hard people worked to turn out the vote in this runoff election, and how Black women and their allies overcame obstacles to ensure that the right to vote would be respected — and their votes counted. I have also been heartened and surprised how young people across the country have found so many ways to engage in the political system over these many months, despite the pandemic.

You can read the rest of the article here.

As I was finishing, a reporter from The Chronicle of Higher Education called to talk about what was happening in Washington. I focused my comments on what had been accomplished over the last several months in energizing students to participate in the electoral system. I was thinking of—for example—Anna Horowitz ’23, who was on leave fall semester working on organizing voters in the Senate races in Georgia. Led by a courageous group of Black women, she and so many others were building the future of civic participation, even in a pandemic. “As we begin to restore order, let’s use education for the civic preparedness we desperately need,” I’d said on Twitter earlier in the day. Once again, we in higher education must recommit to encouraging the kind of democratic practice that is fully in sync with the goals of liberal education: habits of discussion, compromise, collective aspiration and care for the vulnerable.

It has never been more important.

Let’s Begin the Next Phase of Civic Engagement

November 9, 2020 by Michael S. Roth '78

It’s hard to digest all the news, but the elections are mostly behind us. The important question as to who will be president has been settled, but as the fog of that uncertainty has lifted, we must contend with all the other questions that remain. How will we find ways to come together to face the challenges ahead — epidemiological, environmental, social, political, economic? The list goes on and on, and if there is often strong disagreement as to how best to define these challenges, there is no disputing that we have our work to do. And that includes reckoning with our histories of injustice if we are to reinvigorate our aspirations for freedom, equality and justice.

Cynicism is easy, and sophisticated despair (often disguised with irony) is merely an admission of a lack of imagination and will. We need both imagination and will to work together to build a better future — for our campus, for our city, and for the country. There are already groups of students working with faculty and administrators on making Wesleyan a more equitable and inclusive place, and I am hopeful that we can build on that cooperation to continue to make meaningful civic contributions well beyond the borders of the university.

Listening with an open heart and an open mind will lead us to better ways of thinking and acting. Now, the next phase of the work begins.

Promoting the ‘Virtuous Contagion’ of Civic Engagement

April 9, 2020April 9, 2020 by Michael S. Roth '78

Although the conditions for stimulating civic engagement have changed, the importance of making informed choices in determining the country’s political leadership has rarely been clearer. We won’t be knocking on doors in the immediate future, but there are many other ways to get involved. Wesleyan continues to support #E2020, and we need the energy of students, faculty and staff to make this work! I recently wrote about this subject for Inside Higher Education.

In recent days, I was looking for a break from reading about COVID-19, and what did I stumble upon? Articles about the disappointing turnout of young voters in the Democratic primaries thus far. In the United States, ever since 18-year-olds got the vote in 1972, people between 18 and 29 have voted in smaller numbers than other age groups.

Part of the reason for this, apparently, is that it takes time to adjust to any public activity. Voting is a habit that develops from being part of a community, and it takes a while to get it going, especially when you are just entering adulthood and pulling together an independent life.

Reading about voting, like reading about anything these days, brought me back to ideas of contagion, isolation and interaction. Maybe the failure to vote is like the widely reported failure of younger people to self-isolate; they don’t feel they belong to the community that’s at risk. We are now asking for immediate feelings of communal connection when we ask people to stay away from one another. These preventive measures are encouraged to protect some of the most vulnerable: the aging, people with underlying and chronic health issues, the economically disadvantaged. But have we encouraged connectivity of young people with these groups?

The term being used for these measures is “social isolation.” A grim term indeed, but, as Nicholas Christakis has said, we should really be speaking of “physical isolation.” After all, we can remain safely isolated from one another physically while staying socially connected. Via our ubiquitous technological networks, we can have a virtuous social and political contagion even as we avoid malignant physical contagion by keeping six feet apart.

And maybe it’s virtuous contagion that we need to stimulate participation in the vital 2020 elections. Given the current administration’s penchant for voter suppression and the very real problem we would face if people had to come out to vote during an epidemic, one can easily imagine attempts to use the fear of contamination to make it more difficult to cast ballots. This would especially be the case in urban areas where voting happens in crowded places.

The best way to attack cynicism, apathy or voter suppression is through authentic civic engagement between elections. One of the great things about this kind of engagement is that it is contagious. As we replicate efforts to bring people into the political process, we create habits of engagement and participation. Concern for the public sphere — like a virus — can spread. Usually this happens through face-to-face interaction, but now we must turn to virtual tools — notorious in recent years for being deployed to misinform or stir hatred — to strengthen networks for democracy.

At Wesleyan University, we’ve begun a project called Engage 2020 that aims to bring more students into the public sphere to increase their civic preparedness and broaden their liberal learning. The next eight months offer a crucial opportunity for civic participation and liberal education through engagement with the public sphere. With the launch of the E2020 initiative, we provided a number of pathways for student skill and leadership development via direct participation in civic life. On a nonpartisan basis, we offered mini-internships linked with classes, funded student work to increase voter participation and awarded small grants to students to travel to areas where political races were of particular concern.

Of course, circumstances have now changed. We no longer want to encourage travel or to contribute — directly or indirectly — to the kinds of rallies characteristic of political campaigns. Still, there are other ways for colleges and universities to encourage meaningful civic engagement — and to make that engagement contagious.

We can support our students (through internships or virtual fieldwork classes for credit) in helping other people find out how they can register to vote or in working on campaigns, all from home — plugging into virtual networks that allow “knocking on doors” from computer to computer, from phone to phone. Working with organizations like Campus Compact or Civic Nation, MyFaithVotes or Let America Vote, the Chamber of Commerce or the League of Women Voters, students can connect with large numbers of people through networks that don’t require travel, or even hand shaking!

Although some of the commentary on the difficulty of Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign focuses on the failure to increase turnout among 20-somethings, it’s important to note that many thousands of college students across the country are already stepping up to their political responsibility. In our E2020 initiative, we’ve invited several other colleges and universities with strong civic engagement programs to join us in embracing the educational value of political participation. More than 75 quickly signed up — from large community colleges to small liberal arts colleges, from HBCUs and Christian colleges to large, secular research universities. They recognize that civic engagement is good for students, for their institutions and for the country.

This is an anxious time, a time when we have to stay away from our neighbors, our fellow citizens, in order to protect ourselves and the greater good. In circumstances like these, some social networks break down, and we see their disintegration in examples of hoarding, price gouging and general selfishness masquerading as independence. But we also see other social networks coming alive as neighbors look out for one another — providing food, medicine, even communal serenading.

This is also a crucial time for American democracy, an inflection point that will determine the direction of the country and of the world’s environment for many years to come. Colleges and universities have a duty to pay attention to the physical health of their constituents while also attending to the civic health of the nation. By promoting a virtuous contagion of thoughtful, networked civic engagement, our institutions can prove once again that we can respond to dire challenges and make a potent contribution to the public good.

Voting is Good but Colleges Must Do More

November 5, 2018 by Michael S. Roth '78

Tomorrow is Election Day, and there is a polling place right on the Wesleyan campus. You can find out more about voting in Middletown through our Jewett Center for Community Partnerships here.

As vital as voting is, I argue in an essay in Inside Higher Education that colleges and universities should do more in this time of peril for freedom of inquiry and expression. I reproduce the piece here.

In a year when inducements to political violence have become normalized at the highest level, colleges and universities must do more than just encourage our students to vote. Free expression, free inquiry and fact-based discussion are essential to higher education, and we must protect them. Diversity and inclusion are core commitments, and so we must oppose those people who cultivate hatred against immigrants or trade in racist stereotypes. And when government officials go beyond obfuscation to outright lying, we must stand up and object. If we don’t, we become complicit in the calamitous corruption infecting our society, and it may not be long before the higher education we offer is no longer worthy of the name.

There may be no more obvious attack on freedom of expression and inquiry than the Trump administration’s regular demonization of the press. Can it be that we have gotten used to campaign rallies at which reporters are described as “disgusting” and the news media is labeled an enemy of the people? Can we abide a president who tells the media to “clean up its act” when it is the target of terrorism? If one objects to this crude stoking of animosity, defenders of the regime will accuse one of “pearl clutching,” as if defending the dignity of journalists were akin to protecting snobbish privileges. When authorities in Saudi Arabia devised their heinous plot to torture and murder a critic of the regime, did they assume their friends in the White House would understand their desire to punish a writer for The Washington Post? Is objecting to Jamal Khashoggi’s murder pearl clutching?

Education is degraded when freedom of inquiry and expression are undermined. We must not be lured, however, into confronting the poisonous partisan dogmatism coming from Washington with similar dogmatism of our own. If we do so, we will merely be preaching to our own choirs. We must instead promote the importance of intellectual diversity in higher education, and we must beware of confusing the critical thinking we value with the ready-made ideological positions held by the majority of professors and students. Colleges and universities must remain open to a variety of intellectual and cultural traditions if they are to speak meaningfully about freedom of inquiry.

We must also not let the administration and its supporters make a mockery of American aspirations toward diversity, equity and inclusion in our institutions and in the larger society. We at colleges and universities have an obligation to preserve those aspirations, for they are essential to the learning environments that we aim to create. The current demonization of immigrants, for example, is meant to instill a sense of fear and insecurity among folks who have lived in this country for many years as productive members of society. Many of our higher education institutions offer support to our undocumented colleagues and friends, and we have pledged not to voluntarily cooperate with federal authorities seeking to intimidate or deport them.

It is true enough that politicians from various points on the political spectrum have long pontificated, stretched the truth, pumped themselves up and distorted inconvenient facts. But over the last two years, we have seen a callous disregard for truth become an ordinary part of public life. Educators must push back on this trend, but not just by digging into our own ideological commitments. People of goodwill, of course, can disagree about issues concerning freedom, the role of the military, the importance of markets and the responsibilities of the state to protect law and order and to help the most vulnerable members of society. No political tradition has a monopoly on the truth. In fact, that’s why intellectual diversity and freedom of inquiry are so vital: we need that diversity and freedom to see the errors of our own ways and to discover more equitable and effective ways of facing the issues before us.

But we must also recognize that our public discourse has entered a new arena of willful misrepresentation. The dismissal of the dangers of human-induced climate change is the most egregious example of the repudiation of science for the sake of political expediency. President Trump routinely denies having said things that he has been recorded saying, and his mantra of complete denial when confronted with the facts is spreading to other politicians. From issues of sexual misconduct to votes against requiring insurance companies to protect those with pre-existing conditions, politicians have learned from this president that lying (loudly and repeatedly) works when the truth is inconvenient. Surely, educational institutions have as a core part of their mandate to expose falsehoods, to gain agreement on the facts of a matter and to leverage those facts for better public policy.

In the summer of 2016, I wrote in these pages to urge those involved in higher education to join forces “to stop the Trumpian calamity.” I spoke out on electoral politics at that time with great reluctance because I do not think it appropriate for university presidents publicly to back one candidate or another. But over the last few years, from Hungary to Brazil, from Italy to the United States, we have seen the intensification of authoritarian, populist political forces around the world. They all demonize a group of outsiders, and they all substitute appeals to myth and violence for inquiry and discussion.

We in higher education must not treat this intensification as a normal dimension of our public life. This political movement is antithetical to learning; it is anathema to research and teaching and to any possibilities for democracy. Our mission in higher education requires us to oppose it. This is not a call for partisan, political indoctrination. It is a call to preserve intellectual diversity and freedom of inquiry by standing up to the poisonous pollution of our public life.

Semester Underway

January 28, 2018January 28, 2018 by Michael S. Roth '78

I sent this message to the campus a few days ago. My class, The Modern and the PostModern, begins tomorrow….so for me it seems we are just getting underway. I’ve been teaching versions of this course since the 1980s, and around 2000 I thought I’d retire it. But postmodernism, often a bogeyman for one group or another, is back in the news — mostly in relation to President Trump. I’ll share these articles from the New York Times and this video from the Wall Street Journal (start at 5 minutes), as recent examples, but we start with Rousseau and Kant.

Here’s the message that went out to campus:

After a long winter break, I am looking forward to the new semester. Like many faculty, I’ve spent many hours preparing for my upcoming classes, and I’ve tried to dig into some research, too. The teacher-scholar model is at the heart of our enterprise, and Wesleyan is making new tenure-track faculty hires to further strengthen the distinctive education we offer. We have already signed up additional faculty in departments and programs such as Government, Psychology, Music, Science in Society, and Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies.

Promoting civic engagement is part of our educational mission, and shortly we will be sharing a new civic action plan and asking for your views. Ours is an “Engaged University,” and here the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships plays a key role. On February 5, we welcome to campus the Center’s new director, Clifton Watson. On February 15, students, faculty, and staff have another opportunity to be engaged as we host Dr. Joi Lewis, the CEO and founder of Joi Unlimited Coaching and Consulting and the Orange Method, as the speaker at our annual event honoring the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. More information on the program will be forthcoming.

Wesleyan has set yet another record in admission applications: a total of 12,673! That more talented high school grads than ever want a Wesleyan experience is something about which we can all be proud, because it is our combined efforts that create that experience. Faculty do it through powerful teaching and research, staff do it through effective work on behalf of the university, and students do it through avid appetite for learning coupled with an exuberant, joyful building of community.

Expressing support for the university also contributes – be it by talking to others about Wesleyan or by making a financial contribution. In this last regard, the news is also good. As 2018 begins, we have already raised $27 million towards our annual goal of $35.6 million! We use much of these funds to invest in the long-term future of the institution through endowments that support financial aid, academic programs, and campus learning.

The economic basis on which the Wesleyan experience depends is stronger than ever, though still not strong enough given our ambitions and needs. Of these, improving our facilities is especially important, and how best to do that is something we look forward to discussing with you. We have scheduled forums dedicated to facilities planning on February 6 during common time and on February 13 at 4:30 p.m., both in the Kerr Lecture Hall (Shanklin 107). These forums are open to all faculty, staff, and students, and we want your input.

All of this work, from faculty hires to civic engagement, from admissions and financial aid to facilities enhancement, is in keeping with the planning framework developed in Beyond 2020.

Someone said to me recently that young people have to be brave to pursue a liberal education these days – courageous in the context of environmental and political challenges, in the face of political polarization and economic competition. Yes, I thought, the students I know at Wesleyan are brave, and with the support of faculty, staff, and alumni, defy contemporary pessimism with boldness, rigor, and practical idealism. Let the new semester begin!

October 4, 2016 by Michael S. Roth '78

I had lunch today with Cathy Lechowicz and a small group of students who are all working at various aspects of civic engagement, often through the Allbritton Center. Whether it’s through WESU (our community radio station), the Interfaith Council, the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships, the Wesleyan Media Project or the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, all these students are finding ways to connect their education on campus to meaningful work beyond its borders.

There are dozens of student-led organizations that make a difference in the lives of people right here in Middletown or across the globe. It was inspiring to hear about efforts to provide food for homeless people in our city, to improve college access in West Virginia, and to teach computer coding in Zimbabwe. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of meaningful work for social change that inspires a major cross-section of our student body — and also our faculty and staff.

Do you want to find out more about our civic engagement work? The Allbritton website has lots of information.

On a related subject…this may be the most crucial election of at least the last 50 years. Are you registered to vote? If not, you can find more information here. Don’t wait…deadlines are fast approaching!!