“Civility isn’t something that is a condition that either we have or we don’t. It’s something we can teach. It’s something we can practice. It’s something we can encourage in one another and it’s something we ourselves can model,” said Jon Lynch.
MSU alumnus Jon Lynch put these words into action this week as he and his wife, Tina, hosted the Civility & Public Discourse Luncheon and Panel discussion in Midland for more than 50 regional leaders and MSU alumni. Jon is at 1991 graduate of Urban Planning and president of the Three Rivers Corporation.
The panel included Social Science Dean Brent Donnellan; Dr. Raúl Rodriguez, Political Science associate professor and director of the LeFrak Forum; and InnovateGov director Chayse Hurley-Johnston. They discussed the efforts at MSU toward fostering civility including a new course taught this spring.
Hurley-Johnston designed and teaches Civil Discourse (PLS 422) where students engage with each other, learning the skills to evaluate arguments, communicate across differences and promote dialogue.
“I really try to focus on relationship building – getting them to say ‘I know you. I see you. I can get to know you,’ From there, I find our students are quickly able to grasp the more technical skills like research and asking good questions,” Hurley-Johnston said. “In time they learn not just to be participants in the discussion but actually leaders in that space with the ability to guard civility in a conversation.”
Rodriguez leads the political philosophy-based LeFrak Forum on Science, Reason, and Modern Democracy. It is designed to foster freedom of thought and opinion through public lectures and conferences. Since being named director in 2025, Rodriguez has made a concerted effort to include undergraduate students in those conversations.
“Civility is extremely important for these undergraduate students of MSU that I teach because oftentimes I find that students are afraid to really disagree with each other sometimes, or they have opinions that they're afraid to voice. And that's across the political spectrum,” Rodriguez said. “I think one of the most important things is just giving students this space to be authentic to who they are and to say what they believe or they're thinking, but also the importance of being charitable to one another and not being embarrassed.”
Dean Donnellan touched on the policies that the College of Social Science has put in place to encourage students to explore their new community at MSU as well as the greater world. He used the example of the Social Science experiential learning requirement which students fulfill through internships, study away or study abroad or other opportunities outside of campus.
“These are the experiences where we require students to apply what we’re teaching them in class to the complexities of the real world,” Donnellan said. “We teach theories and practicality in this abstract way, but it's a lot different when you're actually trying to teach literacy skills to kids who are four years old and who haven’t had breakfast. Some of the experiences that our students have are - how do you work with these kids to develop those preliteracy skills when they're hungry? And how do we solve those social problems?”
The panel came to fruition following the endowment of the Jon & Tina Lynch Family Promoting Civility Scholarships. Worth $1,500 each, the scholarships are awarded to two students each year who are interested in promoting civility in public discourse, specifically in the space of public policy.
But the Lynches wanted to go farther toward promoting civility beyond the scholarships. They want to foster it in their own community of Midland.
“We wanted to do something more than just express concern about the direction of public discourse. We wanted to help young people, in particular, develop the knowledge, judgment, and courage to improve it,” Jon said. “Our future will not be exclusively invented in Washington, DC, or in Lansing. It'll be shaped in city halls, in classrooms, businesses, nonprofit organizations, neighborhoods, and everyday conversations we have with people with whom we may legitimately disagree on important matters.”
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To learn more about the Promoting Civility Scholarships, please go to the webpage: https://socialscience.msu.edu/academics/scholarships
To learn more about how your support can help efforts like this in the future, please contact Rachel Schmidt, senior director of development for the College of Social Science, at rschimdt@msu.edu
