The Art of Disagreeing Well: Confessions of a Conflict Avoider

This post was originally published on Org Sync Learn Forward, April 20, 2016.

Now that I am at the conclusion of this series,

I have a confession to make...

I hate conflict.
I mean, I really dislike it.

My stomach turns into knots when I know I am going to disagree with someone. I am a peacemaker. I like peace. I want to pursue peace. I want us all to just get along.

But I also have strong opinions. I care about issues and about people. And I want to have a voice. As much as I often want to retreat in silence, I often feel called to speak up on behalf of my students, my friends, my beliefs.

And so, I often find myself caught in the tension between staying silent and keeping the peace or speaking up and bracing myself for potential conflict. I often see students caught there, too, and colleagues. All of us faced with a choice to make. Do we retreat into silence or do we speak up? The reality is that I don’t like having to choose. I want both. I want to keep the peace. And I want to have a voice. I believe most of us would choose both, if we thought we could.

For me, that is why controversy with civility is so important – so we don’t have to choose between love and conviction, between speaking up or walking away.

If we can find ways to have the tough conversations, even when we disagree, especially when we disagree, then that is a gift. For someone who loathes conflict, it is a valuable gift. It allows us to care for each other and to be authentically ourselves, to find our voice and to benefit from the voice of others.

It Takes Practice

This is hard work. There is nothing easy or natural about it, at least not for me. I am a conflict-avoider. So, I need to practice. We all need to practice.

The tools and frameworks that I’ve shared in this series are tools that can help us practice. We can practice dialogue with friends and colleagues that have different opinions than we do. We can practice listening to the other side of arguments and responding not with defensiveness but with curiosity and cultural humility. We can practice sharing our thoughts with those who may not agree with us trusting that we will be better for it (even if we do not change their minds).

This is hard work. But we can do it. With practice, we can learn to engage in conversations that matter to us, we can learn to find our voice AND to love others that see things differently. We can get better at it. We can do this.

What does this have to do with students and with our work?

In my institution’s mission statement, we espouse our commitment to “prepare students for worldwide leadership and service.” In our professional associations, we hear renewed calls for civic engagement as a primary role of higher education. On our campuses, we see students struggling to have civil conversations, struggling both to hear others and to be heard. This has everything to do with student affairs work, with our efforts around diversity & inclusion, with our efforts in tackling tough issues like sexual assault, with our efforts to introduce students to new horizons, new ways of thinking, new perspectives to consider. In preparing students to lead well, to listen well, to love well, we also need to prepare them to disagree well.

As I educate my students, I find that I continue to learn myself. And, I get more opportunities to practice.

Additional Resources

For more information on controversy with civility as it relates to student leadership, see:

Komives, Wagner, & Associates (2009). Leadership for a Better World: Understanding the Social Change Model of Leadership. National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs.

For more information on civic learning & democratic engagement within student affairs, see:

NASPA (2013). 5 Things Student Affairs Professionals Can Do to Institutionalize Civic Engagement: A Special Report from NASPA's Research & Policy Institute.

About the Author

Erin Payseur is the Associate Director of Civic Learning Initiatives at Baylor University. She has ten years of experience in civic engagement and higher education. As part of the Office of Community Engagement & Service, she develops sustainable frameworks for co-curricular service & social justice initiatives to guide students in considering their roles as leaders and citizens. She currently serves as the institutional contact for the NASPA Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement Lead Initiative. She has authored several articles and presented nationally on civic engagement, service, and leadership. In addition to her civic engagement work, she also serves as adjunct faculty for the leadership minor. She has a B.A. degree in Religion/ Philosophy from Presbyterian College and a M.Ed. in Higher Education & Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina.

The Art of Disgreeing Well: Examples & Exemplars

This post was originally published on Org Sync Learn Forward, March 29, 2016.

Controversy with civility. We need it. We need space to embrace the messy conversations. We need commitment to listen and to learn from each other. We need courage to engage in dialogue together and to work across difference. We need leaders who can bring others to the table and to guide us in finding a way forward together. So, in this final section of posts, it is to leadership that we turn our attention.

Several years ago, my campus had the privilege of hosting a conversation on public service between former US Congressman Chet Edwards and former presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson - Edwards, a democrat, and Gerson, a republican.

Their party affiliations quickly disappeared, though, as these two men spoke about their common goal of working for the greater good, of solving community issues and leading national efforts. Their mutual respect and admiration for each other was obvious.

I remember leaving the event inspired with a new hope and optimism about the potential of politics to work for that greater good, the potential of Americans to come together across partisan lines, and the potential for leaders who are able to cast that vision and lead that collective work.

I still am still hopeful of the potential for us to lead that change together, to be the change that we want to see in the world, and to work with others to create a community that works for all of us. I am still inspired by leaders who step out from the caustic partisanship in politics or the culture wars in society to respect voices on the other side of the aisle or the pew or the neighborhood.

It’s messy work. It can be long and frustrating work. But it is valuable work, necessary work, and worthwhile work. And since we cannot avoid controversy, we most definitely cannot abandon civility.

Here are several other recent examples of leaders who have done that work and have used civility to change conversation for the better within the political context.

Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, on The State of American Politics



"That’s the thing about politics. We think of it in terms of this vote or that election. But it can be so much more than that. Politics can be a battle of ideas, not insults. It can be about solutions. It can be about making a difference. It can be about always striving to do better. That’s what it can be and what it should be. This is the system our Founders envisioned. It’s messy. It’s complicated. It’s infuriating at times. And it’s a beautiful thing too."


The friendship between Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg & Antonio Scalia

“Even in that VMI case, Ginsburg was grateful for how Scalia disagreed: giving her a copy of his dissent as soon as possible, so she could properly respond. “He absolutely ruined my weekend, but my opinion is ever so much better because of his stinging dissent,” she said. Whether or not it was how Scalia saw it, for Ginsburg their public friendship also made a statement about the court as an institution: that it was strengthened by respectful debate, that it could work no matter how polarized its members were.”

What are some other examples?
Where you have seen controversy with civility at work?

Let’s celebrate that work together and learn from them.

We will all be better for it.
Our campuses will be better for it.
Our communities will be better for it.
Our world will be better for it.

Click here to see all posts in the Civility Series.

About the Author

Erin Payseur is the Associate Director of Civic Learning Initiatives at Baylor University. She has ten years of experience in civic engagement and higher education. As part of the Office of Community Engagement & Service, she develops sustainable frameworks for co-curricular service & social justice initiatives to guide students in considering their roles as leaders and citizens. She currently serves as the institutional contact for the NASPA Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement Lead Initiative. She has authored several articles and presented nationally on civic engagement, service, and leadership. In addition to her civic engagement work, she also serves as adjunct faculty for the leadership minor. She has a B.A. degree in Religion/ Philosophy from Presbyterian College and a M.Ed. in Higher Education & Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina.

Embracing the Messiness through Crucial Conversations

This post was originally published on Org Sync Learn Forward, December 17, 2015.

In this series, I have highlighted several tools to help us embrace the messy conversations. We’ve looked at Public Deliberation as a tool for navigating conversations around policy issues and Intergroup Dialogue as a framework for promoting dialogue across different social identities. We now have tools to talk about difference across race, gender, or religion, as well as hot topics like campus carry and immigration. We do not have to retreat in silence but can instead engage in meaningful and productive dialogue with people who may disagree with us. We have some tools to help us disagree well and to work through difference to find a common way forward together.

There are times, though, when difference is personal, when personalities clash or issues arise with another individual. Instead of group conflict, sometimes it is the individual conflict that can interfere with our work, add to our stress, and hinder our progress toward a common goal. How do we embrace the messiness of conversations with the other, when the other may be a friend, a family member, an acquaintance or a coworker? How do we disagree well with another person?

Last year, I had the opportunity to attend the Crucial Conversations training offered by Vital Smarts, a two-day intensive training full of tools in the toolbox to help us have those crucial conversations with others and to resolve the conflict that keeps us apart. It is based on the book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler.

Here is a fun & quick video introduction to the book and the concepts of navigating crucial conversations well.



In case you missed it, several key principles from Crucial Conversations include:

• Get Unstuck
• Start with Heart
• Master Your Stories
• State Your Path
• Learn to Look
• Make it Safe
• Explore Others’ Paths
• Move to Action

I highly recommend adding the book to your reading list and attending the training if you have the chance. These skills helped me feel prepared to tackle the emotionally charged, important conversations with others. Instead of shying away in fear or lashing out unproductively, it gave me strategies to listen, to share, and to address issues with others in a way that can preserve the relationship and move us forward together.

I use crucial conversation skills now with students, when I need to have accountability conversations or when conflict arises in a student group.

I use crucial conversation skills with colleagues and with my boss, when I need to talk through areas of disagreement or talk about concerns.

I use crucial conversation skills with friends and family, when navigating holidays, tough decisions, or relationship drama.

I use crucial conversation skills with donors and guests, when I want to get on the same page and establish mutual purpose & respect.

I use crucial conversation skills in any number of situations to talk about any number of different issues with any number of different people. It has given me the confidence and the skills to have the important conversations and to work through issues, conflict, or decisions together.

In this first part of the Controversy with Civility Series, we have now looked at three valuable tools for embracing the messiness. We have Public Deliberation as a model that can guide policy discussions. We have Intergroup Dialogue as a model that can bridge difference across identity groups. We have Crucial Conversations as a toolkit for interpersonal communication.

Are tools enough, though? In my next post, I will shift from discussing tools to discussing heart - how we learn to listen and to love the other. All the tools in our practitioner toolbox will not help us disagree well if we see the other as the enemy. Join me next time as we begin part two of the series, Controversy with Civility: Listening & Loving the Other.

Additional Resources:

Crucial Conversations by Vital Smarts

Click here to see all posts in this series.

About the Author

Erin Payseur is the Associate Director of Civic Learning Initiatives at Baylor University. She has ten years of experience in civic engagement and higher education. As part of the Office of Community Engagement & Service, she develops sustainable frameworks for co-curricular service & social justice initiatives to guide students in considering their roles as leaders and citizens. She currently serves as the institutional contact for the NASPA Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement Lead Initiative. She has authored several articles and presented nationally on civic engagement, service, and leadership. In addition to her civic engagement work, she also serves as adjunct faculty for the leadership minor. She has a B.A. degree in Religion/ Philosophy from Presbyterian College and a M.Ed. in Higher Education & Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina.

Embracing the Messiness through Intergroup Dialogue

This post was originally published on Org Sync Learn Forward, November 24, 2015.

In this series, we are exploring the art of disagreeing well with one another. In part one, I have been sharing tools and practices that help us embrace the messiness and create space for the hard and challenging conversations. In my last post, I shared about public deliberation as a tool for deliberative dialogue on public issues, helping us sort through different policy perspectives to identify shared values and common ground forward together.

However, there are some conflicts that run deeper than policy issues or voting preferences. There are some conflicts that are rooted in who we are and how we fit into the world around us, that reflect our yearnings for justice and fairness and freedom and worth. When we feel part of our identity is devalued or ignored or trampled on by others with more power or by institutional systems established with biases or discriminatory intent, we often feel powerless to engage, to share our experience, and to affect change. How do we create a safe space for these kinds of conversations, to bring people to the table with vastly different experiences and perceptions, vastly different levels of power and influence, vastly different needs and agendas?

These kinds of conversations are inherently messy and often separate us from one another instead of unite us. They often come laden with power dynamics and privilege, and the realization that we can never truly walk in someone else’s shoes (nor would we necessarily want to). How do we talk about our shared experience with those who have never shared it? How do we address issues and concerns in contexts that are often immersed with power and privilege, with ignorance or insensitivity? How do we dare to embrace that kind of messiness?

This week, I want to share another favorite tool of mine, a relatively new one to me, intergroup dialogue. Intergroup dialogue offers hope for these kinds of conversations. It equalizes the power dynamics and creates space for groups to have sustained dialogue together over time. Since I am new to this process, I asked one of my colleagues, Jasmine Wilson, to sit down with me and share the potential and the power of intergroup dialogue, as a tool for this kind of messy, important work.

The power of intergroup dialogue comes, as Jasmine explains, from the ability to equalize the power dynamic by creating a space for group members that have had power to hear the story and the experience of the other. It requires confidentiality and vulnerability, with consistent mindfulness to the power dynamic present. The goal is to provide voice to the counter-narrative and to give EVERY participant the opportunity to feel heard. This is not a short-term fix that provides easy answers to complex struggles. This process requires a sustained commitment over time, over a semester-long course or a yearlong program, to enter into community with the other – to listen and to share, and to seek to understand. It is a process that comes with rich potential for personal growth by participants, both in reflecting & articulating their own struggles and in valuing and understanding the struggles of others.

Typically, students are selected for this process, as it requires a desire and a commitment to engage in the messy conversations. Selection often varies based on identity groups to ensure a balance of power & perspective. It can be an add-on to a restorative justice model, or used for follow-up after a crisis incident.

Quality and trained facilitation is essential. Shared knowledge and research from multiple perspectives form a common starting point. But then, the hard work is up to individual members, to share, to listen, to engage. The conversations can get messy, but the payoff can be rich in terms of building new community, forming relationships across difference, and learning to truly value the other.

In the recent high profile police incidents involving African American males, there has been a heightened awareness of the disconnect and disparity of African American experience with police as compared with the white experience. This context is a ripe opportunity for intergroup dialogue, to provide the opportunity for white participants to listen and to value the experience of their African American peers, to understand in new ways the counter-narrative of discrimination and violence within the criminal justice system and to enter into sustained dialogue and discussion over time.

The Oriented to Love dialogue series offered by Evangelicals for Social Action is another example of intergroup dialogue at work. It brings together gay, straight, transgender individuals from diverse theological backgrounds, not to reach consensus on policy issues but rather to share their stories, to come to a deeper understanding of each other’s experience and struggles. It creates space for the other to become a person, and to create new opportunities for mutual understanding and respect.

Intergroup Dialogue Snapshot

Useful for: Dialogue for identity-based groups (race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc)

Audience: Selected participants committed to extensive program, balanced representation from groups

Goals/ student learning outcomes: (Carcasson, 2010)

• Ability to reflect & articulate own experience
• Improved listening skills
• Improved communication skills
• Improved conflict resolution skills
• Increased respect across difference

To get started: Check out Intergroup Dialogue Institute at University of Michigan.

I would be interested in hearing your experience with intergroup dialogue. Feel free to share your stories or ideas about using it to embrace the messy conversations on your campus.

Next time, we’ll shift from a group perspective to an individual perspective. How do we embrace the messy conversations with individuals in our lives – our bosses, our coworkers, our students? How do we disagree well with others and talk through the tough conversations? We’ll explore a tool that can guide us through those messy conversations.

Thank you to Jasmine Wilson, Assistant Director for Resident Learning at Baylor University, for her help and expertise for this article. Jasmine currently serves on the cultural competence work team in facilitating intergroup dialogue initiatives on campus and has completed training with the National Intergroup Dialogue Institute at the University of Michigan.

Additional Resources:

• The National Intergroup Dialogue Institute, University of Michigan
• Words of Engagement: An Integroup Dialogue Program, University of Maryland
• Oriented to Love: A Dialogue About Sexual Diversity in the Church, Evangelicals for Social Action
• I’m Not Racist, Am I? A documentary highlighting year-long intergroup dialogue on race and privilege

About the Author

Erin Payseur is the Associate Director of Community-Based Learning at Baylor University. She has ten years of experience in civic engagement and higher education. As part of the Office of Community Engagement & Service, she develops sustainable frameworks for co-curricular service & social justice initiatives to guide students in considering their roles as leaders and citizens. She currently serves as the institutional contact for the NASPA Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement Lead Initiative. She has authored several articles and presented nationally on civic engagement, service, and leadership. In addition to her civic engagement work, she also serves as adjunct faculty for the leadership minor. She has a B.A. degree in Religion/ Philosophy from Presbyterian College and a M.Ed. in Higher Education & Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina.

Click here to see all posts in this series.

Embracing the Messiness through Public Deliberation

This post was originally published by Org Sync Learn Forward blog, November 4, 2015.

Part 1: Embracing the Messiness

In my last post, I introduced this series on how we can disagree well with each other. Let’s face it. Sometimes we need some tools, resources, and processes to guide our conversations and provide a framework in which the messy conversations can happen. When we want to talk about sensitive and controversial issues, we need to de-escalate the emotion and provide a safe space in which we can value different perspectives, let down our defensiveness, and work together across difference.

In Part 1 of this series, Embracing the Messiness, I plan to highlight some of the favorite tools in my practitioner toolbox. I’ll share about some promising frameworks that can help us move from fearing the difficult conversations to embracing the messiness of disagreement in a way that allows us to move forward together. There are different tools for different situations. The more tools we have in our toolbox, the more likely that we will have the right tool for the right situation.

Public Deliberation Overview

Public Deliberation is one of my favorite approaches for working through policy issues. The deliberative process brings people together to sort through three or four different research-based perspectives on a given issue with the goal of understanding each perspective and its values, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of each. It is easy to focus on the benefits of our own viewpoint and minimize the values of others. This structured process ensures that we hear and understand multiple perspectives and recognizes the need to balance individual and community needs. It is a process undergirded with the recognition that there are often competing positive values that require us to make tough choices between multiple legitimate options.

This past academic year, my campus hosted our first two deliberative forums, one on immigration and one of the changing role of higher education. Using issue guides from the National Issues Forum, facilitators guided students through a structured discussion of differing viewpoints. Each perspective was given equal time and equal respect. Regardless of their personal opinion, participants spent time understanding each one, discussing the values inherent in that perspective, as well as its potential benefits and trade-offs.

For immigration, for example, participants deliberated through three options: welcoming new arrivals, securing the border, or promoting economic prosperity (admitting immigrants based on economic needs & factors). Not only did a vast majority of participants leave thinking differently about the issue, they also were able to begin identifying potential common ground. In recognizing the value of different perspectives, they were able to recognize the need to balance competing positive goods and to look for potential ways forward together, balancing economic interests with humanitarian responsibility and national security.

When there are important policy decisions to be made, public deliberation is a useful framework for exploring those policy alternatives and bringing other diverse perspectives to the table. Campus carry is a hot topic in my state currently. Public deliberation can be a useful framework in addressing a topic like campus carry and to shift the conversation away from gun rights or gun control to a more productive, informed, and deliberative conversation. We do not have to silence either of those viewpoints but rather can intentionally bring advocates of both of those to the table.

Public deliberation gives us a framework that allows us to explore the implications of those, understand different options, and discover common values and common ground that moves us forward together in community. Instead of silencing the controversy, we can embrace the messiness to make it a productive growth process for all involved.

For a valuable primer to the deliberative practice & process, I highly recommend Carcasson & Sprain’s article (2010) on the key aspects of the deliberative democracy movement. This article highlights the core principles of public deliberation including the roles & processes that guide a forum, as well as potential impacts and implications.


Useful for: Policy discussions (e.g. campus carry, immigration, healthcare)

Audience: Diverse & inclusive group representative of population

Goals/ student learning outcomes: (Carcasson, 2010)

• Awareness & understanding of issues
• Improved democratic attitudes
• Improved democratic skills
• Improved community action
• Improved institutional decision-making
• Improved community problem-solving

To get started: Browse issue & facilitator guides available through the National Issues Forum.

I would be interested in hearing your experiences or thoughts about public deliberation. Feel free to share your stories or your questions about this tool.

Next time, we’ll shift from embracing the messiness on policy issues to embracing the messiness in groups, particularly identity-based groups. How do we learn to disagree well with others across difference in race, sexual identity, or religion? We’ll explore intergroup dialogue as one option to help us get there.

Works Cited:

• Carcasson, M. & Sprain, J. (2010). Key Aspects of the Deliberative Democracy Movement. Public Sector Digest. www.publicsectordigest.com

• Carcasson, M. (2009). Beginning with the End in Mind: A Call for Goal Driven Deliberative Practice. Center for Advances in Public Engagement. Occasional Paper. No.2.

Additional Resources:

• National Issues Forum – research based issue guides for numerous public issues, along with information & resources for facilitators on how to host forums.

• Resource Guide on Public Engagement (2010). National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation – outlines different engagement streams & processes for exploration, conflict transformation, decision making, and collaborative action.

• Kettering Foundation – focuses on supporting democratic practice through resources, publications, and training

Click here to see all posts in this series.

About the Author

Erin Payseur is the Associate Director of Community-Based Learning at Baylor University. She has ten years of experience in civic engagement and higher education. As part of the Office of Community Engagement & Service, she develops sustainable frameworks for co-curricular service & social justice initiatives to guide students in considering their roles as leaders and citizens. She currently serves as the institutional contact for the NASPA Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement Lead Initiative. She has authored several articles and presented nationally on civic engagement, service, and leadership. In addition to her civic engagement work, she also serves as adjunct faculty for the leadership minor. She has a B.A. degree in Religion/ Philosophy from Presbyterian College and a M.Ed. in Higher Education & Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina.

Controversy with Civility: The Art of Disagreeing Well

This series was originally published as part of the Org Sync Learn Forward platform beginning in October 2015.

Ferguson. Gay marriage. Planned Parenthood. Immigration. National Debt. Living Wage. Religion. Politics. Do you cringe when these topics come up? Do these words automatically bring to mind the same old heated sound bites we’ve heard over and over? For some of us, hot topics like these create a visceral emotional response that seems to yell and scream at us, “No, don’t go there. You better not open that can of worms! That’s too heated of a topic. That’s too sensitive. No one wins in these conversations.” Sometimes, I wish I could heed those voices. Sometimes, I wish I could opt out of the conversations. I would much rather avoid the conflict and the messiness of conversations about which I know students and others will disagree. After all, who likes conflict?

No matter how much those voices in me say don’t bring it up, though, truth be told, I sense a calling to talk about these issues with my students. As a student affairs practitioner, I sense the need to guide them in making meaning of the world and to understand why these issues provoke such strong responses from all of us. I sense the need to give them courage to enter the conversation instead of run from it, to engage instead of retreating in silence. While these issues are sensitive and controversial, they are also vitally important in terms of who we want to be as a society and how we choose to live with one another in community. If we leave them to the pundits, will we solve the problems? Will we find ways forward together?

Make no mistake, engaging in this kind of work with students is often a messy process. It means being willing to have the hard conversations. It means being willing to listen and to love the other. It means celebrating moral courage and conviction, even in those with whom we may disagree. For my students, though, I want to give them skills to have these conversations – to go beyond the surface of the sound bites, to understand and respect multiple viewpoints, and to truly connect with others across difference to make our world a better place.

I have pulled the title of this series, “Controversy with Civility,” from the Social Change Model of Leadership (Higher Education Research Institute, 1996). In this model, the skill of controversy with civility is one of the group values that create the environment for social change. I want to emphasize early on that this kind of work, having these kinds of conversations, is part of leadership and an essential part of leadership – to not just bring other voices to the table, but to celebrate those voices, and to use those voices to forge new patterns and possibilities. In order to fulfill that potential, we have to frame controversy as a positive. In order for controversy to be a positive, we have to establish a culture of civility. In order to establish a culture of civility, we have to listen and value each other.

In this series, I invite you to dive in with me to think about how we can accomplish these goals. Together, we’ll look at some helpful tools and frameworks, learn to listen and love the other, and to celebrate the leadership involved in engaging in the hard conversations together.

Part 1: Embracing the Messiness – In this section, we’ll examine different tools and frameworks for working across difference with public issues, with groups, and with individuals. We’ll explore public deliberation as a tool for wrestling with policy issues and solving community problems together. We’ll explore intergroup dialogue as a framework for engaging social identity groups in ongoing conversation with each other over time. We’ll explore crucial conversation skills for interpersonal communication with other individuals in our lives. Whether we disagree with one, or with many, whether we are discussing social issues or life experiences, navigating relationships or advocating for rights, there are tools and strategies that give us the courage and the confidence to engage in the hard conversations.

Part 2: Listening & Loving the Other – In this section, we’ll explore our common humanity and cultivate an attitude of cultural humility in responding to each other. We do not have to agree with each other to respect and to love each other. We will consider research from moral psychology to understand what we all have in common. Then, we’ll get back to the basics of listening, moving from a posture of cultural competence to cultural humility. We’ll open our hearts and our minds to be vulnerable together.

Part 3: Celebrating Moral Courage & Conviction – In this section, we’ll come back to the leadership lessons of controversy with civility. We’ll look at how controversy with civility fits into the larger picture of leadership. We’ll explore how it prepares students to be leaders of moral courage and conviction who are able to work with others for positive social change.

Join me on the journey, and we’ll dive in together over the coming months. Offer your comments along the way. Share strategies that have worked on your campus. Let’s encourage each other as we learn the art of disagreeing well.

About the Author

Erin Payseur is the Associate Director of Community-Based Learning at Baylor University. She has ten years of experience in civic engagement and higher education. As part of the Office of Community Engagement & Service, she develops sustainable frameworks for co-curricular service & social justice initiatives to guide students in considering their roles as leaders and citizens. She currently serves as the institutional contact for the NASPA Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement Lead Initiative. She has authored several articles and presented nationally on civic engagement, service, and leadership. In addition to her civic engagement work, she also serves as adjunct faculty for the leadership minor. She has a B.A. degree in Religion/ Philosophy from Presbyterian College and a M.Ed. in Higher Education & Student Affairs from the University of South Carolina.

Works Cited:

Higher Education Research Institute (1996). A Social Change Model of Leadership Development (Version III). Los Angeles: University of California Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute.

Additional Resources:

Sponsler, L.E. & Hartley, M. (2015). Five Things Student Affairs Professionals Can Do to Institutionalize Civic Engagement. NASPA Issue Brief - http://www.naspa.org/publications/books/five-things-civic-engagement

Komives, S.R. & Wagner, W. (2009). Leadership for a Better World: Understanding the Social Change Model of Leadership Development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

American Association of Colleges & Universities, Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement Initiative - https://www.aacu.org/clde

NASPA Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement –
https://www.naspa.org/focus-areas/civic-learning-and-democratic-engagement

Click here to see all posts in this series.