Faculty Checklist: Steps to Respond to Classroom Incivility

lecture hall full of students

Finding a balance between protecting free speech and keeping classroom discussions professional is often easier said than done in an election season when anything from climate change to history lessons might quickly become a hot topic.

For practical, useful advice on classroom civility, we talked with Barbara Lee, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Rutgers University, and Kathleen Rinehart, General Counsel and Secretary of the Corporation at Saint Xavier University. With their help, we’ve developed the following quick sheet for faculty.

(You can click the image below to see a larger and printer-friendly version, or click here.) 

Checklist: Steps to Respond to Classroom Incivility

(You can view and print a larger, PDF version of this checklist here.) 

We hope you will forward or print this checklist and share it with your colleagues!

If you found the checklist helpful, we also recommend our popular recorded webcast “Faculty Civility and Academic Freedom: Protecting the Workplace while Preserving Academic Culture.”

In this 90-minute training, learn how to address faculty incivility without violating academic freedom. You can view an excerpt from this recorded online training and purchase the training for your department.