How to Talk About Hot Topics on Campus: From Polarization to Moral Conversation

Love love love this book. Gave great information on how to talk about those hot topics that need to be discussed. I like the examples each writer gave from their perspective. This is a must read and will be read again!!

I found this item to be of excellent quality, pricing and timing.Definitely recommended for all graduate students!!!

This book truly engages you on a voyage of discovery on how best to bring up and have meaningful dialogue on topics that can be controversial on campus. Being that I work at a law school I am always looking for ways to engage my students in new and fun ways and to push them in their own student development. This book has great ideas and resources that will help you to start these dialogues. The author has some deep beliefs that are shared, but it is in a way that challenges and encourages the reader to delve deeper and to challenge his/her own students to do the same. This book provides a call to action for any educator, and really any person to push the gauntlet on what we have done in the past to change the world for tomorrow. The book is well written and organized and allows the reader to leave with tangible tools that will allow them to take conversations/discussions on their own campus to the next level.*I received this for review - all opinions are my own*

In the true spirit of the moral conversation at the heart of this book, I respectfully disagree with the reviewer accusing Nash of hiding behind his own spiritual and metaphysical beliefs in Hot Topics. He is a fine scholar of religion, ethics, spirituality and a Philosopher of Education. With more then 40 years of teaching experience he is also the most ethical teacher I've had the pleasure of taking classes with. Anyone wanting to learn more about how he is a true pluralist would benefit from reading his many books in his areas of scholarship. All one needs to do is read the latest he co-wrote with Penny Bishop, Teaching Adolescents Religious Literacy in a Post-9/11 World published by Information Age Publishing, 2010.to see the reviewers claim isn't accurate. Reviewers have the right to their own opinions but reading it prompted me to share a review I wrote of the book and to share my thinking on the topic of the review. Don't miss this book.Here is my review which first appeared in the Journal of Education Book Reviews.Education Book ReviewsNash, Robert, J.; Bradley, LaSha DeMethra & Chickering, Arthur W. (2008). How to Talk About Hot Topics on Campus: From Polarization to Moral Conversation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Pages: 268 Price: $38.00 ISBN: 978-0-7879-9436-5Hot Topics is a call for, a how to, and the seminal text on what the Moral Conversation is and how to carry it out. The authors describe moral conversation on page 8 as: The Latin etymology of the word conversation is to live with, to keep company, to turn around, to shift perspective. Thus a moral conversation is literally a manner of living whereby people keep company with each other and talk in good faith, in order to exchange sometimes agreeable, sometimes opposing ideas. Above all, however, moral conversation is a mutual sharing of all those wonderful stories that give meaning to people's lives. In most cases, these stories are rich in religious, political, social class, ethic and cultural context. Moral conversation obligates each of the participants to listen actively and respectfully to the stories of others, both to understand and affirm them as well as to discover whatever "narrative overlap" might exist among them.In moral conversation, how we talk about something is as important as what we talk about. Dr. Nash, the creator of moral conversation, has written and presented on the topic for the past 12 years. This collaborative effort is the latest version of this work.I use the moral conversation in my interdisciplinary teaching across content areas at two distinctly different colleges. I use it with faculty, staff and student affairs practitioners. As an ethics scholar, I believe it is my ethical and moral responsibility to help spread the idea of moral conversation and the word on this groundbreaking book.The Preface is a cogent and convincing call to action supported by three major arguments for moral conversation. First, there is a need for recommitment on the part of campus leaders to sustain "informed political and civil discourse" during a time when "the tone of academic debate has become increasingly polarized, and in some cases, we see attempts to silence, individuals, faculty and students alike, all with controversial views"(p. ix). Second, threats to academic freedom proliferate with "the recent rise in anti-Semitic incidents [and a] troubling increase in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents." The key is to promote "open and honest dialogue... [in an] atmosphere of mutual respect, in which diversity is examined and seen in the context of a broader set of values" (p. x). Third, "promoting new scholarship and teaching about cultural differences and religious pluralism, while supporting academic freedom requires a significant commitment at every level of the academic community... It is no longer adequate for student affairs staff to bear, largely alone, the responsibility for sponsoring and overseeing difficult dialogues" (p. x).There are three parts to the book. In Part I: Laying the Theoretical Groundwork for Moral Conversation the authors give their rationale in a unified voice by advocating for "a culture of conversation, not a culture of contestation" (p. 4). The authors help us understand how to talk about hot button topics and the stakes if we don't. They review the conversational culture found on many college campuses. On pages 11-26 specific examples of hot topics on college campuses are detailed. Examples include religious intolerance, the war on evil, political correctness, god, morality, identity politics and social class. The authors explore key distinctions among such terms as tolerance, diversity, multi-culturalism and pluralism. They make the case that pluralism is a far more fitting background framework for moral conversation than the other three frequently used terms. These are just a few examples of the rich, salient instruction advice and stories the authors provide to both inspire and guide the reader.Part II: Practicing the Moral Conversation is the heart of the book. The authors examine the concept of pluralism and how to ask pluralistic questions using the guidelines of moral conversation. Nash presents a "Faculty Member's View on Moral Conversation from the Classroom." Next Bradley offers an administrators view on moral conversation discussing student social class issues within a Division of Student Affairs. Bradley is a doctoral student at the University of Vermont and Associate Director of the Center for Student Ethics & Standards. The third view comes from Chickering as he reflects on his long accomplished career and makes instructive recommendations regarding systemic issues related to supporting and initiating the moral conversation across campuses. For example, he shares strategies for how to shift institutional culture to one that welcomes and nourishes difficult conversations (p. 133).Part III: Final Words on Moral Conversation is extraordinarily well thought and laid out. It opens with a heated political scenario that took place recently on a college campus. Nash was asked to come to that campus to help facilitate conversation when civil discord around political difference caused animosity. Here we see students speaking of their experiences in this scenario. Next follows "A Letter to Our Colleagues and Students" bringing together all the points from the previous chapters giving detailed directions on how to prepare and participate in hot conversations.The book ends with five Appendixes including a guide for facilitators and participants, a list of additional text references and Internet Resources, an article about Western stereotypes, a whole campus teaching and learning rational for moral conversation, and a discussion of Naturalistic and Narrativistic Paradigms in Academia and what the implications are for moral conversation. Nash proposes narrativistic scholarship and moral conversation as powerful tools for learning our students' stories and making meaning on college campuses.I believe this is brilliant, timely and instructive book, not only for educators, but one that reaches across disciplines and functions in higher education and beyond for anyone that wants to improve the outcomes of their conversations about controversial topics. Reading Hot Topics will improve both the quality and outcomes of conversations particularly conversations that tend to polarize rather than unite. It conveys the need to create spaces for these conversations on college campuses, but also instructs how to do it. Everything needed is provided aside from the courage and commitment to learn, practice, plan and initiate moral conversation.ReferencesHerbst, S. T. (1995). The new food lover's companion. Hauppauge, NY: Barrons.Reviewed by Andrea Silva McManus, a faculty member at both The New England Culinary Institute and Champlain College.

This book is well organized and well written, but I find it antithetical that a proclaimed atheist and postmodernist, from the most atheistic state (VT) in America, speaks/writes/teaches about religion and spirituality. If you are postmoderist, you will love this book. If not, it will be a bothersome read, because the author is not believable, even though he tries to 'balance' the issues. I would have liked it if Nash did not hide behind the fact that he is a postmoderist/atheist....but then no one would buy the book. The other two authors are great.