The Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) is giving students the tools to build a more resilient campus community—and world. 

PERIL was tapped to develop a series of workshops that explore the root causes and impacts of different forms of hate and the relationships between racism, discrimination and oppression, antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate, and other forms of bigotry. One of the workshops for AUx2, part of the AU Core Curriculm, explores “Constructive Speech During Contentious Times.”

“It is important that our AU undergraduate curriculum provides students with theory and practice on these topics,” said Bridget Trogden, dean of undergraduate education and academic student services and professor in the School of Education.

In addition to its work with AUx2, PERIL will engage with the broader AU community to pilot workshops to promote understanding of different perspectives, utilize dialogue to wrestle with difficult issues, and foster inclusion and a sense of belonging. 

“Colleges across the country have been a site for so much unrest and hostility over the past few years,” said PERIL founding director Cynthia Miller-Idriss, who holds a joint appointment in the School of Public Affairs and School of Education. “It’s so important to help shore up campus communities’ capacity to engage productively across differences in a way that still recognizes and rejects hateful and harmful content.”  

The workshops are based on PERIL’s Building Resilient and Inclusive Communities of Knowledge (BRICK) toolkit, which equips students, faculty, staff, and administrators to understand, confront, and prevent hateful, discriminatory, and marginalizing attitudes in their communities. Launched in 2022, BRICK has been used in trainings with more than 100 college presidents across the country, including at Hispanic-serving institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

“It’s important to understand that issues of polarization and hate span all institutions of higher education. Our goal is to ensure PERIL’s data and science can help as many of them as possible . . . to do the work before incidents occur [on campus],” said La’Nita Johnson, PERIL’s director of training and partnership development.

Upcoming programming for the campus community includes:

• Student leaders are invited to participate in “story circles” to identify commonalities in their lived experiences. The training, Cultivating Strength through Shared Stories, will be held on Sunday, March 3, in Kerwin Hall T03. The workshop is sponsored by PERIL and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion. 
• PERIL, AU Core, and the Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning will host Constructive Speech during Contentious Times, a training for faculty members, on Monday, March 4, from 9:40–11:05 a.m. in SIS’s Abramson Family Founders Room. 
• PERIL will host a panel discussion for students on Wednesday, March 20, about the history of hate, with a focus on antisemitism and Islamophobia. Participants will learn the principles of community organizing and how to take a proactive, student-centered approach to confronting hate.
• On Sunday, April 14, from 3–6 p.m., PERIL will host a screening of Origins, based on Isabel Wilkerson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.