Civility engineering

New U of T post aims to foster respectful debate on polarizing issues

- JANET HURLEY

Prof. Randy Boyagoda has been appointed as U of T's first provostial adviser on civil discourse.

As part of an undergraduate course in contemporary American fiction, University of Toronto Prof. Randy Boyagoda recently had his students watch Greta Gerwig's "Barbie."

He then assigned them to read "'Barbie' is bad. There, I said it," a takedown of the top-grossing film by New York Times columnist Pamela Paul, who argued that not liking the movie doesn't make one a misogynist.

In the class discussion that followed, Boyagoda found many students persuaded by the opinion piece. Some were grateful for the points Paul made because, they said, they wouldn't have been willing to express similar thoughts for fear of seeming as though they were not allies of women.

"We had a really good conversation. They are very shrewd and insightful students," said Boyagoda.

But then, suddenly, he had another thought: "Oh my goodness, if we can't say we don't like 'Barbie,' how are we going to talk about Hamas?"

It's a question that makes Boyagoda realize how much work is ahead of him as the newly appointed provostial adviser on civil discourse a first for U of T, and a position similarly emerging on a few American campuses where division has run deep over the Israel-Hamas conflict.

During his 18-month post, Boyagoda will assemble a working group of faculty and students, lead conversations across three campuses and develop a plan for programming and events. The goal, he said, is to "cultivate a disposition for civil discourse, rather than focus on mere tactics."

Boyagoda, a writer who also serves as vice-dean, undergraduate, in the faculty of arts and science and was past president of PEN Canada, is no stranger to the issues around civil discourse and freedom of expression.