Departments across campus collaborated to educate students on the importance of political correctness. 0 n Oct. 4, 2018, the Roosevelt Institute hosted a panel on political correctness in the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Business Building. · The Roosevelt Institute was a club on campus connected with the national Roosevelt NetworkI.t was the only student-led group that aimed to implement local, state and national policies. The goal of this panel was to start conversations on campus that were already happening all over the world, including the topic of political correctness. The panel consisted of Dr. Heath Carpenter, Roosevelt Institute sponsor and assistant professor of English, and Mac Sandlin, assistant professor of Bible and ministry. "I think it's important for Christians to know how to think and talk about the trends that are shaping the culture around us," Sandlin said. "Having the panel [was] a way to be helpful, to give us good language and open places to dialogue about chis controversial issue." Carpenter mentioned political correctness was a term that had a lot of meaning behind it, but that meaning was not always clear. He said it was vital for students to understand the importance of political correctness, so when students had conversations outside of Harding, they would know how to have those conversations in an educated way. "We often rely on abstract terms to do the thinking for us," Carpenter said. "We evoke an '-ism' or a term like 'political correctness;' that's shorthand for a lot of issues." At the beginning of every school year, Carpenter, Associate Professor of English Amy Qualls, the other Roosevelt Institute sponsor, and the club's president brainsrormed what topics were most relevant to the discussion. The 2018-19 Roosevelt Institute president, junior interdisciplinary studies major Cayde Newtons,aid he thought the topic of political correctness was important because it would be easy to avoid during a student's time at Harding. Freshman Addison Boyle attended the political correctness panel and expressed appreciation for the way the speakers approached what was potentially a sensitive topic. "I think the panel was great," Boyle said. "One of the speakers said, 'Is this the hill you want to die on?' and, ya know, that really put a lot of things into perspective for me." story by Kayla Meeler 273 I HISTORY & POLITICAL SCIENCE
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