Advice

Tips for collaboration between students and faculty on issues of free speech and inclusion

Campuses are rich with opportunities for intellectual exchange between faculty and students. On issues of free speech and inclusion, faculty and students can serve as important allies and resources for one another. Faculty can help inform students’ thinking using their expertise; and students can help faculty understand the challenges they face on campus and how thinking on these issues is shifting among their generation.

  • SEEK OUT FACULTY

    Faculty whose work addresses immigration, free speech, protest, diversity, inclusion, and social justice movements can offer important perspectives on these issues. They can help shape demands and platforms, situate protests within a larger cultural and historical context, advise on strategy, and provide resources to students who want to deepen their knowledge.

  • SEEK OUT STUDENTS

    Students can offer fresh perspectives and often have their fingers on the pulse of larger conversations surrounding these issues among young people. Students are also often eager to learn and to mobilize and can be essential in bringing large numbers of people and greater diversity to the table.

  • MEET

    Set up informal gatherings where like-minded students and faculty can meet and discuss topics related to free speech and inclusion. Consider planning events co-hosted by faculty coalitions and student groups.

  • COLLABORATE

    In organizing within the institution, collaborative efforts involving student and faculty participation can be particularly powerful agents of change. By presenting a united front they can bolster each other’s messages.

  • FACE OUT

    Groups of faculty and students united on particular issues can also be effective in harnessing university resources to advocate for change outside the university.