USU holds first annual conflict forum
Utah State University welcomed Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Irshad Manji, founder of the Moral Courage Project, to the first annual President’s Forum on Conflict and Conflict Resolution on Feb. 5.
Several hundred people viewed the forum in person and through the livestream on the university’s website. The speakers touched on the importance of managing conflict in today’s heated political environment.
“I ask our entire community to undertake person-to-person conversations about conflict and how to resolve them,” said USU President Elizabeth Cantwell during the event.
The Utah legislative session and other hot topics, Cantwell said, including the Israel-Hamas conflict, created the “perfect moment” for the forum on resolving conflict.
“We’ve forgotten how to disagree without hating each other, and you can’t solve problems without healthy conflict,” Cox said during the forum.
Cantwell said when she was choosing high-level speakers for the event, Cox and Manji’s names came up. They had met before and had similar messages. “We have ‘Disagree Better’ and ‘Moral Courage,’ and I can’t imagine two phrases that meet together better for the moment that we have,” Cantwell said.
As the chair of the National Governors Association, Cox created a new initiative called Disagree Better.
“We need to learn to disagree in a way that allows us to find solutions and solve problems instead of endlessly bickering,” Cox wrote on the NGA website.
Manji created the Moral Courage College. According to its website, “Moral Courage means speaking truth to the ego’s power so we can learn from multiple perspectives, especially on issues that need solutions.”
Manji shared the five steps of moral courage with the audience, including breathing deeply, creating common ground, asking questions and listening. She said the early activists of the Civil Rights Movement practiced moral courage.
“They said, ‘We will educate our emotions,’ and what they meant was, ‘Look, we know that once we hit the streets, we will be punched and spat out and kicked and used as human ashtrays. If we stoop to that level, we are allowing our own emotions to get the better of dignity. Instead, we will take charge of our emotions,’” Manji said.
Cantwell said because of the Utah legislative session, “the idea of moral courage was one that would be really useful for our community,” and she mentioned moral courage mentoring at USU as something that could be a future possibility.
During the event, a group of students protested outside of the Russell/Wanlass Performance Hall, holding signs that expressed their opposition to the recent transgender bathroom bill and the diversity, equity and inclusion bill passed in the Utah House of Representatives.
Ellie Carpenter, a USU student participating in the protest, said she attended the forum and appreciated the message, but found it a little bit hypocritical.
“They’re trying to be inclusive and accepting of other people when we’re protesting because they’ve just passed two bills that are the opposite of inclusive and accepting,” Carpenter said.
Cantwell urged students to read the language of the bills passed by the Utah House of Representatives rather than follow the media’s narrative about it.
“That’s really, really important for all of us at this point,” she said.
Regardless of what legislation is passed, Cantwell said, “My goal is to create as many venues to talk about how we move forward in a way that empowers all of us.”
Cantwell said this forum will continue to be held annually, but other events may stem from it.
“Many of the deans are thinking, ‘Well I’m going to do something in my college too,’” she said.
Manji suggested the forum should be renamed: Instead of conflict and conflict resolution, it will now be called conflict transformation.