Robyn Andrews is Coordinator for Libraries Circulation & Research Services, Thriving Communities Coordinator, and a facilitator of workshops on empathy, civility, and DEI through a biblical lens. Earlier this year, Andrews taught an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) course, Civility: What We Do, Why It Matters. Drawing on P.M. Forni\u2019s Choosing Civility, the course explored what its syllabus describes as \u201ckindness, respect, and how to keep our cool when the world tests our patience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of the four-week course centered on Forni\u2019s rules for civility. Ms. Andrews emphasized the first two, paying attention to and acknowledging others, as foundational to understanding the rest. Some of the most fruitful conversations came from disagreements about how these principles apply to everyday life. In one discussion, for example, the class was divided over how tardiness affects others and just how \u201cuncivil\u201d being late might be.<\/p>\n
The course was well received, with every participant who completed the post-course survey saying they enjoyed it and would recommend it to other OLLI members.<\/p>\n
By balancing information with conversation, Ms. Andrews gave participants an opportunity to practice civility as they learned about it. The course reflected On Discourse\u2019s broader goals of strengthening active listening, clear and respectful expression, comfort with disagreement, and empathy across the Furman community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Robyn Andrews is Coordinator for Libraries Circulation & Research Services, Thriving Communities Coordinator, and a facilitator of workshops on empathy, civility, and DEI through a biblical lens. Earlier this year, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":464,"featured_media":747,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-programming"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/464"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":749,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions\/749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/on-discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}