HxCommunities Flexible Funding Opportunity Grant Recipients

HxCommunities Flexible Funding Opportunity (FFO) Grants support the important work HxA members are doing to advance constructive disagreement, viewpoint diversity, and open inquiry in education. This ongoing grant offering, the first ever from HxA, is open to HxA members and affiliates who participate in the HxCommunities program, and supports a wide variety of initiatives.

Our recipients represent a variety of disciplines and institutions, and each is an example of how our members are championing HxA values in their communities. Read about the current recipients below.

“Campus Expression in New Zealand”

Project Leads: HxNew Zealand Community Participants

The first Flexible Funding Opportunity Grant was awarded to a group of members in the HxNew Zealand community. The recipients are using the funds to administer the Campus Expression Survey to students at the five largest universities in New Zealand. This project aims to explore the extent to which New Zealand university students perceive their educational institutions as embracing heterodox values that welcome respectful disagreement and viewpoint diversity.
“Growing Diversity of Thought in K-12 Education: Current Challenges and the Path Ahead”

Project Lead: Christina LaRose, Researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | HxK-12 Education Community

Christina LaRose received an FFO grant to organize a virtual conference, which aimed to empower stakeholders in education to advocate for, and incorporate, diverse perspectives and critical thinking in the classroom. More than 150 educators and administrators attended. Watch session recordings on the conference website.
“The Views of Scientists, Engineers, and Professional School Faculty about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies”

Project Lead: Steven Brint, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, University of California, Riverside | HxSociology Community

Steven Brint received a Flexible Funding Opportunity grant to research the views of STEM scholars on the implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Building on a study by Komi T. German that explores views on these policies from arts and humanities scholars and social scientists at the University of California, Brint’s study will expand the sample to investigate the views of natural scientists, medical scientists, and engineers at the same campus. A presentation and panel discussion will take place when the study is complete.
“Diversity Without Division Awareness Campaign”

Project Lead: Irshad Manji, Founder, Moral Courage ED | HxK12 Education Community

Let Grow, the national nonprofit that advocates independent thinking and emotional resilience in young people, has received a Flexible Funding Opportunity grant to advance its work in K-12 schools.

The “Diversity Without Division” campaign will introduce school leaders across America to Moral Courage ED, a project of Let Grow that equips students (and their teachers!) to hear, not fear, different perspectives. Moral Courage ED is already living up to its mission by cultivating allies as ideologically diverse as Facing History and Ourselves and the Cato Institute.

With this grant, Let Grow will distribute to 2,000 school leaders a copy of Don’t Label Me: How to Do Diversity Without Inflaming the Culture Wars. Written by Moral Courage ED founder and Oxford University fellow Irshad Manji, Don’t Label Me is the inspiration behind several professional development tools, including a signature online course, that educators are increasingly adopting.

If you’re a K-12 leader, or know someone who is, request the book that Jonathan Hait calls “humble, loving, humane” and Chris Rock calls “genius.”

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"Heterodoxy in Canada"

Project Lead: Martin Drapeau, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, McGill University | HxCanada Community

This nation-wide, multi-faceted initiative in support of heterodoxy in Canada led by Martin Drapeau will 1) conduct surveys of university students to assess campus climate, with a focus on freedom of expression and viewpoint diversity; 2) design a website for Canadian academics and students to promote viewpoint diversity, respect for others, and constructive dialogue; 3) devise a concept map and conduct a scoping review; and 4) host the first Canadian conference on viewpoint diversity in academia on April 22, 2022, at McGill University in Montreal and virtually.

Drapeau is working with several fellow HxA members across Canada to complete this project, including HxCanada Community Moderator Andy Sellwood, Vancouver Community College; Samuel Veissières, McGill University; Robert Edward Whitley, McGill University; Annett Korner, McGill University; Raúl Colón, University of Ottawa; Melanie Soderstrom, University of Manitoba; student Maizy Thorvaldson, University of British Columbia; and student Steve Han, University of Toronto.

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“The Role of Academics in Canada”

Project Leads: Christopher Dummit, Professor, Canadian Studies, Trent University; and Zachary Patterson, Associate Professor, Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal | HxCanada Community

Alongside the student survey administered by the “Heterodoxy in Canada” project team, Christopher Dummit and Zachary Patterson will use their FFO grant to conduct an opinion poll of Canadian university professors, as well as a sample of the Canadian population, to determine respondents’ views on the role of professors today and to gauge respondents’ support for heterodox values. They will also ask whether respondents have themselves experienced threats to academic freedom.
“Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: A High School Course”

Project Lead: William Reusch, Social Studies Teacher, Shalhevet High School, Los Angeles | HxK-12 Community

With their FFO grant funding, Will Reusch and team will create a course on critical thinking for high school students. They will design a semester-long curriculum, split into units, for high school teachers and administrators to adopt and implement in their school or district. The project will include an evaluation of the teachers, and their students, who successfully adopt the curriculum.

Reusch has teamed up with fellow HxA members Zach Cresswell, a math instructor at Mount Pleasant High School (Mt. Pleasant, Michigan), and Robert Rue, an english teacher and writer at The Calhoun School (New York City), to develop this course.
“Symposium on The Ethics of Freedom of Speech”

Project Lead: John Hasnas, Professor of Ethics, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University| HxPhilosophy Community

John Hasnas received FFO funding to support the Symposium on the Ethics of Freedom of Speech. Twelve scholars representing diverse disciplines and ideological viewpoints were invited to consider this topic and write original essays, which were assembled into groups based on their content, for presentation at the symposium on November 19, 2021, and subsequent publication in a Georgetown University public policy journal.
“UDelEngage: Engaging College Students with Civic Engagement and Discourse at a Pivotal Point in their Development as Citizens”

Project Lead: Lindsay H. Hoffman, Associate Professor, Communication, University of Delaware | HxCommunication Community

Lindsay Hoffman is utilizing an FFO grant, along with resources and buy-in from campus stakeholders, to scale up existing work and create a lasting presence at UD. Through campus experiences including a symposium and facilitated dialogue; research on best practices; and tools to help other campuses follow their lead, she is cultivating opportunities for the UD campus to model civil dialogue for the next generation.
“Symposium of Public Discourse and Deliberation Program Directors”

Project Lead: Kevin Marinelli, Executive Director, Program for Public Discourse, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | HxHumanities Community

Through this FFO-funded symposium, Kevin Marinelli is bringing together public discourse and deliberation program directors and associates from campuses across the country to connect with one another, communicate their ongoing initiatives, share their successes and challenges, engage diverse pedagogical techniques, and, ultimately, pool their intellectual resources in the effort to advance a robust framework of rhetorical and deliberative pedagogy well into the twenty-first century.
“The Challenge of Free Speech on Campus”

Project Leads: Mike Weaver, Director of the Bradley Study Center at Virginia Tech, and Ellington Graves, Director of Africana Studies in the Department of Sociology and Assistant Provost for Diversity and Inclusion at Virginia Tech | HxHigher Ed Leadership Community

The Bradley Study Center and the Virginia Tech Office for Inclusion and Diversity partnered for this FFO-funded project to support a campus-wide dialogue on freedom of expression and civil discourse. Professors Robert George, Princeton University, and Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary, engaged in a public conversation on the Virginia Tech campus on March 17, 2022, focusing on the importance of both free speech and civil discourse. A series of in-person and virtual discussions among students and faculty to address the challenges of fostering these core values within the unique context of Virginia Tech followed the event.
"Exploring Free Expression in the Social Work Classroom"

Project Leads: Jane Fenton, Reader and Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching, School of Education and Social Work, University of Dundee, and Mark Smith, Professor of Social Work, School of Education and Social Work, University of Dundee | HxSociology Community

The issue of free speech is a major contemporary academic and cultural issue, which Jane Fenton and Mark Smith will explore in this piece of research They are interested in how social work students understand, and might respond to, particular controversial issues in the course of their studies.

Fenton and Smith will use their FFO grant to administer Heterodox Academy’s Campus Expression Survey and to host an event later in the spring to share their findings. Through this research and event, they hope to foster discussion about HxA’s three principles: open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement.

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"Confronting Hegemonic Ideas Speaker Series"

Project Lead: Robinder Bedi, Associate Professor, Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education, University of British Columbia | HxCanada and HxPsychology Communities

Robinder Bedi received an FFO grant to create a speaker series in the Counselling Psychology Program Area at the University of British Columbia designed to counter the growing reluctance to openly discuss controversial topics or admit willingness to learn about unpopular viewpoints. True to the title of the speaker’s series (Confronting Hegemonic Ideas), each speaker provides a heterodox perspective relevant to the field of counselling psychology. More specifically, the project sets out to:

• Increase awareness of heterodox viewpoints and inconvenient facts/findings that do not conform to hegemonic narratives and dominant perspectives in counseling psychology, in order to promote critical thinking.

• Model intellectual humility and respectful engagement with speakers who present controversial/unconventional perspectives.

• Create changes in academic culture and traditions consistent with the values of Heterodox Academy that result in (a) the enhancement of rigor for scholarship and (b) an improvement in the ability of trainee counselors/psychologists to serve those who differ from them, including with respect to political and ideological diversity.

View the recording for the March 17 discussion “What is Racial Equality?” featuring Glenn C. Loury, Merton P. Stolz Professor of the Social Sciences, Department of Economics, Brown University.

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"Heterodox Classics Dinner Workshop"

Project Lead: James Kierstead, Senior Lecturer in Classics, Victoria University of Wellington | HxClassics Community

The Heterodox Classics Community and project lead James Kierstead received an FFO grant to host a dinner workshop at The Punter Pub in Cambridge. It was the community’s fourth mixer and fifth panel/workshop, all but one of which has taken place at or on the fringes of larger Classics conferences. The event allowed community participants to take stock of the current prospects for viewpoint diversity in their field and to think about how to further support it in the future.
"We Talk Civil Discourse Initiative"

Project Lead: Jeffrey Breneman, Vice President for Government Relations, Western Michigan University | HxHigher Ed Leadership Community

Jeffrey Breneman, Vice President for Government Relations at Western Michigan University, received a Flexible Funding Opportunity grant to engage campus and the Kalamazoo regional community in interactive, educational opportunities that promote civil discourse, viewpoint diversity, and free speech rights and responsibilities through the We Talk initiative he and others founded in late 2019. More than 1,000 campus and community members have participated in this grassroots movement, which is committed to the idea that free speech and social justice can be reconciled and has the support of WMU students, faculty, staff, and campus and community leaders.

We Talk programming is designed to shape a vision of what people can achieve by actively engaging with others with diverse backgrounds, interests, and viewpoints through learning/engagement opportunities, resources, and tools. Activities include a 2-day campus/community visit by a nationally recognized author in fall and spring semesters, monthly free speech cafés featuring campus and community panelists, and a conversational exercise that promotes connection and compassion—Moving Conversations @ WMU. Most events are recorded by student videographers, which are published on YouTube and promoted as resources available to campus and the public to support learning in the classroom, workplace and at home.

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“Mid-Atlantic Dialogue Workshops, Skill-Building, and Campus Expression”

Project Leads: Joseph Bubman, Adjunct Faculty, Environmental Studies, Georgetown University, and Kira Hamman, Assistant Teaching Professor, Mathematics, Penn State University – Monto Alto | HxMid-Atlantic Community

This project advances the HxMid-Atlantic Community’s mission of promoting open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement at community colleges and four-year public and private universities across the Mid-Atlantic through 1) Dialogue Across Difference workshops and Difficult Conversations skills classes for students, and 2) sharing of lessons among educators and administrators.
“Navigating diverse perspectives related to social identity and belonging at Brigham Young University”

Project Leads: Jeff Glenn, Assistant Professor, and Cougar Hall, Professor, Department of Public Health, Brigham Young University | HxHealth Professions Education Community

Professors Glenn and Hall will partner with Living Room Conversations to organize and evaluate a series of on-campus conversations in which students with diverse perspectives participate in structured dialogues around divisive public health-related topics such as COVID-19, mental health, and racism. The project will train undergraduate students to facilitate these conversations with the goal of increasing respect and shared understanding across differences at BYU and in the broader community.
“Building Viewpoint Diversity Visibility in Australian Universities”

Project Lead: Geoff Sharrock, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne | HxAustralia Community

Sharrock will work with higher education scholars and stakeholders on how to make viewpoint diversity more visible on Australian campuses. Three main tasks will support this work: up to twenty interviews, two workshops, and a discussion paper. The project will identify current and emerging challenges in this area at the policy and/or practice levels, and ideas for improving policy and/or practice in the promotion of free inquiry and open exchange as defining values in higher learning contexts.

Personal blog about this project: Project: Building viewpoint diversity visibility – Big Little Thought Crimes in Melbourne

The HxCommunities Flexible Funding Opportunity was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed by funded programs, projects, or events are those of the individual Grantees, organizers, speakers, presenters, and attendees of such events/activities and do not necessarily reflect the views of Heterodox Academy and/or the John Templeton Foundation.

HxCommunities Flexible Funding Opportunity Grant Recipients

“Campus Expression in New Zealand”

“Growing Diversity of Thought in K-12 Education: Current Challenges and the Path Ahead”

“The Views of Scientists, Engineers, and Professional School Faculty about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies”

“Diversity Without Division Awareness Campaign”

"Heterodoxy in Canada"

“The Role of Academics in Canada”

“Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: A High School Course”

“Symposium on The Ethics of Freedom of Speech”

“UDelEngage: Engaging College Students with Civic Engagement and Discourse at a Pivotal Point in their Development as Citizens”

“Symposium of Public Discourse and Deliberation Program Directors”

“The Challenge of Free Speech on Campus”

"Exploring Free Expression in the Social Work Classroom"

"Confronting Hegemonic Ideas Speaker Series"

"Heterodox Classics Dinner Workshop"

"We Talk Civil Discourse Initiative"

“Mid-Atlantic Dialogue Workshops, Skill-Building, and Campus Expression”

“Navigating diverse perspectives related to social identity and belonging at Brigham Young University”

“Building Viewpoint Diversity Visibility in Australian Universities”