Anchorage universities publish handbook to help teachers engage controversial issues in the classroom

By: Staff Jul 16, 2008

“Start Talking” handbook created from participation in national Difficult Dialogues initiative

ANCHORAGE, AK – Two Anchorage universities have recently published a book based on their experiences as members of the Ford Foundation’s national Difficult Dialogues initiative. Start Talking: A Handbook for Engaging Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education is the result of a unique partnership between the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) and Alaska Pacific University (APU).

Start Talking presents a model for a week-long faculty development intensive, plus strategies for engaging controversial topics in the classroom and reflections from 35 faculty and staff members who field-tested the techniques. It addresses themes of academic freedom; classroom safety; rhetoric and debate; race, class and culture; science and religion; and business, politics and social justice. Full of essays, case studies and classroom techniques, it serves as a field manual for professors who wish to strengthen their teaching and engage their students more effectively in conversations about the most important issues of our time.

The book and the project were supported in large part through the Ford Foundation’s Difficult Dialogues initiative, launched in response to reports of growing intolerance and increasing efforts to curb academic freedom on U.S. campuses. The UAA/APU partnership was one of 26 projects in the nation to receive a Difficult Dialogues grant. The long-range goal of the UAA/APU project is to improve the learning climate on both campuses, making them more inclusive of minority voices and ways of knowing, and safer places for the free exchange of ideas.

“The handbook is modeled after our successful faculty development program,” said Kay Landis, Editor. “We realized early on how valuable that experience could be, offering a rare opportunity for faculty to form a true learning community around a significant teaching challenge. It’s been exciting to see faculty from different disciplines coming together to discuss these difficult topics and to share their successes and failures.”

“We expected this Difficult Dialogues project to have a dramatic positive impact on our faculty, on our students, and in our classrooms—and it has,” said Dr. Michael A. Driscoll, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at UAA.

The publication of Start Talking will extend the impact of the project even further, as copies are distributed to every faculty member at both universities, to other universities who received the Difficult Dialogues grants, and to interested parties across the country. The project is continuing at APU and UAA in the coming year with a focus on Alaska Native cultures and issues in higher education.

A complete PDF version of Start Talking: A Handbook for Engaging Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education can be found online at

MEDIA CONTACT: Jessica D. Hamlin, (907) 786-1288, anjmh6@uaa.alaska.edu