Mission

To foster open inquiry and civil dialogue at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In doing so our aim is to support academic freedom, encourage diverse perspectives, promote respectful debate and strengthen our commitment to intellectual rigor.

Motivations

We created an initiative to bring together a diverse group of faculty and librarians because of our desire to sustain essential academic norms and advance new perspectives in our campus community. We are motivated in different degrees to probe the following concerns:

• How can we draw attention to developing norms of open inquiry and debate for first year students and incoming graduate students?
• What are effective ways to respond to student concerns, expressed on campus climate surveys, which indicate that some students believe they are silenced and even punished for their political views?
• To what extent has there been diminished dialogue on campus across diverse viewpoints among faculty, students and staff?
• To what extent do public statements by the university and its subunits on political events of the day affect academic freedom and dialogue on campus?
• How can we address diminishing trust in higher education institutions among key stakeholders and the public?
• What are strategies to handle potential intrusion on academic freedom by either internal or external actors?

Goals

Although our community emphasizes different motivations and have diverse perspectives, we are united to pursue the following:

• Uphold and strengthen UMass norms of open inquiry and civil debate.
• Cultivate intellectual curiosity and respect for divergent views in our campus dialogues.
• Support community and belonging on the UMass campus across multiple identities and viewpoints for all learners on campus, including both faculty and students.
• Practice faculty governance in support of open inquiry, academic freedom, and civil dialogue.