Review for Provost’s Initiative on Understanding and Engaging with Extremism

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” hover_type=”none” link=”” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_text]Thank you for participating in the review of proposals for the Provost Initiative on Understanding and Engaging with Extremism. Please find the proposals on the left, categorized by number, and the survey form for review on the right. You can either submit one review at a time, or submit all reviews at once. If you choose to submit one review at a time, you will need to input your contact information each time you return to submit a review. For questions or comments, please contact Marguerite Bonous-Hammarth at mbonoush@uci.edu.

Please view the training video here before proceeding: http://replay.uci.edu/media/uci-only/winter2018/OIE_Proposal_Reviewer_info_-_louder_volume_-_20171218_164806_11.html

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_2″ layout=”1_2″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” hover_type=”none” link=”” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_tabs design=”classic” layout=”horizontal” justified=”yes” backgroundcolor=”” inactivecolor=”” bordercolor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_tab title=”1″ icon=””]The Anatomy of Science Denial[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

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Much has already been written and said about science denial over the course of the last century. The proposed project does not reiterate the scientific facts of this or that controversial issue and contrast them with the false facts being posited by science deniers. Such work is vitally important, but it is already occurring across universities and in public forums around the world. Rather, it addresses the equally important question of understanding how science denial works.

Rather than “naming and shaming” science denial, this project takes science denial as it is and focuses instead on thick, detailed, empirical study of the mechanism by which science denial actually happens. How is science denial generated? How does it circulate, and how does changing technology (e.g., social media) change the way it circulates? How do people come to believe or disbelieve science denial?

In this sense, this project proposes to explore the “anatomy” of science denial, the connections that animate it. That means we propose to focus on the mechanism by which science denial is made, honed, altered, circulated, and believed. The goal will be to nurture and stimulate rigorously empirical analyses of science denial firmly rooted in social scientific approaches to the understanding of the social production of ideas. This will provide rich and useful insights which can be deployed by those addressing the issue of denial.

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In February 2018, the Organizing Committee will identify scholars, both internal and external, doing promising empirical work focused on the mechanisms of science denial. We envision that approximately 12 subprojects will be identified. Possible topics will include evolutionary theory, vaccination, pesticides, chemical safety, climate change, air pollution and health, and forensic science. Project teams will range from individual researchers to small research teams. These teams of scholars will be invited to develop their projects over the course of the year from works-in-progress to near-finished products. Participating researchers will be asked to address questions such as: How do different forms of media feed–or interrupt–science denial? How is science denial articulated and legitimated in different settings? In Fall 2018, a public event will be held in which near-finished projects are disseminated to the campus and community for further response and discussion. High-profile scholars and/or public figures will be recruited as keynote speakers. For each project, we will identify a campus teaching partner, a course into which the project can be integrated in order to enhance experiential learning opportunities for UCI students. UCI participants will participate in the Spring roundtable of the UCI Center CLEANR which will be on the topic of “Defense of Science.” Finally, the Newkirk Center’s newly hired Coordinator for Community Engaged Research will be tasked with developing appropriate community engagement projects with local, regional and national organizations.

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As noted in the Project Plan, each of the subprojects will be disseminated in a UCI course. In addition, the public event will be widely advertised, using the 2000-person Newkirk Center mailing list and media contacts. The event will be video streamed, allowing for real-time participation by individuals off-campus (those following the stream will be invited to pose questions or make comments on talks), and recorded and posted on the Newkirk Center website. Given the urgency of and public interest in this topic, we will also seek to produce an edited, curated collection which can be widely disseminated. We will work with a respected scholarly publisher to craft an open-access product that meets our commitment to public accessibility and our need for scholarly rigor. At the same time, we will build a web and social media presence for the collection, drawing on the highly successful model developed by Cultural Anthropology (for example, https://culanth.org/curated_collections/21-precarity). The Newkirk Center has a track record of producing important edited volumes from its events, such as: (1) Joseph F.C. DiMento & Pamela Doughman (eds), Climate Change: What it Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014) (2nd edition; 1st edition: 2007); (2) Special Issue on Limits 2015: First Workshop on Computing within Limits, First Monday, Vol. 20, No. 8 (Aug. 2015).

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The project will be largely assessed by our success at transforming projects from works-in-progress to published, publicly accessible studies. To this end, the project leaders will engage in formative assessment of the projects at intervals during the year in order to provide guidance and feedback, and to establish links between the projects which can contribute to the public event and final products. For the public event, we will develop an instrument which gauges audience interest and engagement with the issues. We will also encourage audience members to visit our Facebook site and both comment on the event and dialogue with speakers. We will deploy data analytics to track visits to our social media site, retweets of our messages and views of live and recorded sessions. Interventions in teaching will be assessed by in-class evaluations using a set of questions standardized across all the projects.

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This project meets a critical need of UCI and the Office of Inclusive Excellence by developing thick, detailed, empirical studies of the mechanisms by which science denial actually happens. How is science denial generated? How does it circulate, and how does changing technology (e.g., social media) change the way it circulates? How do people come to believe or disbelieve science denial? In this sense, this project proposes to explore the “anatomy” of science denial. The goal will be to nurture and stimulate rigorously empirical analyses of science denial firmly rooted in social scientific approaches to the understanding of the social production of ideas. This will provide rich and useful insights which can be deployed by those addressing the issue of science denial.

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The Newkirk Center for Science and Society focuses on the interaction between science and society, including the role of society in the production of scientific knowledge and technological systems and artifacts and the effects of scientific knowledge on society. It seeks to explore and think critically about the process by which scientific information is communicated to the public and policy-makers. The Center carries out its mission through support of research, workshops, and public events. The Center has a long history of programing on areas of controversial science in which the denial of science is an issue. The Center’s very first public event involved a memorable analysis of the denial of climate change science by legendary UCI faculty members Nobel Laureate F. Sherwood Rowland (a Newkirk Center Advisory Board member) and former Chancellor Ralph Cicerone. Newkirk Center programing led to publication of the book Climate Change: What it Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren, Joseph F.C. DiMento & Pamela Doughman (eds), MIT Press, 2014, 2nd edition; 1st edition: 2007. The Center also has a strong track record of programing events such as the one proposed. The general format is modeled on our successful program on The Limits of Computing, which was held in 2015 and resulted in the Special Issue on Limits 2015: First Workshop on Computing within Limits, First Monday, Vol. 20, No. 8 (Aug. 2015). The Newkirk Center is in the process of hiring a Coordinator for Community Engaged Research, who will be tasked with contributing to the proposed project.

 

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”2″ icon=””]Bridging the gap between medical education and the LGBT+ community: Efforts to improve healthcare delivery through dialogue, education and understanding[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

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The relationship between the medical and LGBT+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, other gender or sexual identity) communities has only recently begun to recover from a history defined by fear and stigmatization. In a 2015 national study of almost 30,000 transgender individuals nationwide, 33% reported experiences of discrimination by healthcare teams, ranging from denial of services to outright physical and verbal abuse. Other gender and sexual minorities are known to face similar barriers, and consequently face poorer health outcomes as compared to the broader U.S. population. The overarching goal of this proposal is to address these issues within the School of Medicine at UCI by attempting to close the knowledge and clinical skills gap related to the LGBT+ community that presently exists in medical education.

The four specific aims of this proposal are:

1. to longitudinally expand the medical school curriculum focused on LGBT+ health throughout all four years of medical school

2. to enhance collaboration with LGBT+ local community members and health advocates

3. to implement quantitative assessments to measure changes and progress in medical student clinical competence in caring for LGBT+ individuals

4. to broaden dissemination and visibility of the educational activities through multimedia documentation.

Using this approach, we aim to better educate the next generation of health care providers in order to impart a broader, culturally competent tool set to more effectively administer health care to the LGBT+ population.

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The four aims of the project will be accomplished in the following manner:

1. At present LGBT+ healthcare related issues are only addressed in the 1st year of medical school. We propose to expand this to all 4 years of medical school. Once students have been broadly exposed to health delivery in the 3rd year of their training, they will participate in a forum focused on health care delivery in which they will hear and engage in dialogue from LGBT + patients from the community. A clinical skills exam will be developed to assess the ability of 4th year students to provide culturally informed care.

2. An interactive forum for medical students and LGBT+ community members will be planned that will be both an interactive panel and small breakout groups. We will host a reception where students will be able to interact with community members regarding their experience with healthcare delivery.

3. Prior to graduation 4th year students will be tested on their cultural competence in addressing LGBT+ related health issues. In this proposal we will develop a clinical exam using standardized patients focused on LGBT+ health issues.

4. We will develop and analyze a questionnaire to capture changes in student perceptions. Baseline knowledge and attitude will be assessed during the 1st year orientation. Students will again be tested in the 3rd year, after the session described in aim 2 is complete. In the 4th year the results of the standardized clinical exam (aim 3) will inform Medical Education Deans as to the effectiveness of the curriculum related to LGBT health care delivery.

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Estimated project costs include four main areas: clinical exam development, assessment tool development, community forum, and dissemination of project outcomes.

Clinical Exam Development Total: $10,000.
Development of the clinical exam will require the efforts of clinical faculty, in collaboration with community members and physician advocates. The requested funds will cover faculty time to develop the exam. Funds will also cover the costs for exam scoring by clinical faculty, and fees to educate and reimburse standardized patients.

Assessment Tool Development Total: $3,000.
Questionnaires will be developed in collaboration with Terrence Mayes, Ed.D. Costs will also cover the processing and analyzing of questionnaire results, and preparation of results to be submitted for publication.

Event Logistics Total: $5,000. Event logistics will include planning, space reservation, refreshments, photo documentation and other event planning costs.

Dissemination Costs: $2,000. Dissemination costs will cover the recording of student and community member testimonials for dissemination and developing website content.

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Dissemination of the project is targeted toward the broader UCI campus, LGBT+ community partners, future medical school applicants, as well as other medical education programs across the state and nation. This will be accomplished by posting to the UCISOM website medical student testimonials regarding the LGBT+ health training curriculum and making the LGBT+ focused clinical exam available to other medical education programs. In addition a manuscript of the outcomes will be prepared and submitted for publication.

Based on the outcomes of our questionnaire, and results of our first LGBT+ focused clinical exams, we aim to critically evaluate the effectiveness of our curriculum in giving our students the tools to provide high quality, culturally competent care to members of the LGBT+ community. Pending positive student improvement in both metrics, we will integrate the newly developed exam into the standard curriculum. The LGBT+ clinical exams will be shared with other medical educators nationwide as well as residency programs so that others can benefit from this training. Additionally, we plan to use questionnaire outcomes to inform the development of future forum and lecture-style sessions across all four years of medical school. Future versions of this curriculum will ideally include participation by students from the School of Nursing, which has expressed interest in collaborating in LGBT+ health training efforts.

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The effectiveness of efforts to enhance the understanding and clinical competency of medical students regarding healthcare delivery to the LGBT+ community will be assessed by:

Establishing a baseline understanding of LGBT+ issues from which to compare future results. This will be accomplished by administering an IRB approved survey developed for incoming medical students. Data collected will be centered around individual awareness of LGBT+ specific issues that may affect access to healthcare as well as the comfort level in dealing with LGBT+ related issues. This survey will be administered again to senior students. Results of the “pre” and “post” evaluation will be compared. In order to capture students that will benefit from all enhancements across the medical school curriculum. The complete results will not be obtained for four years, the length of the curriculum.

The most impactful measures of the effectiveness of the proposed curriculum enhancements are the results of the student performance in the standardized LGBT+ clinical exams focused on specific issues they will encounter in clinical practice. These cases will be developed in the proposal and will be administered to graduating students. Measurements of effectiveness will include standardized patient feedback on student performance, specifically: History, Physical Exam, Patient Education and Counseling, Fundamentals of Physical Exam Behavior, and Patient/Provider Interaction. Students will also take a post exam where they will be asked specific clinical questions gleaned from the LGBT+ patient presentation.

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Regardless of their future training and practice settings, medical students will eventually provide care to LGBT+ individuals. Recognizing and working to confront bias early in medical training is thus essential in preparing future care providers to more compassionately address the unique needs of these patients. The implementation of this project would also represent a crucial step forward for Diversity and Inclusion efforts in the Health Sciences at UCI, which have only recently begun to actively integrate LGBT+ issues into basic training curricula. It is our hope that by boldly addressing these issues through this project, we can continue to build UCI’s reputation as progressive, compassionate, and community-oriented model of integrated medical education.

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In developing our community forum event, our most significant collaborators will be patients from the LGBT+ community who will be able to educate students directly about their perspectives and experiences with healthcare delivery. We plan to seek patient input on all aspects of the proposed program, including the panel/forum planning, post-forum results, and development of our clinical skills exam. Recruitment of patient participants will be made possible with the help of our community liaisons, Dr. Lynn Hunt and Dr. Kristin Vierregger, whose close relationships with patients have previously allowed for successful student-patient interactions in extracurricular panel sessions at UCI.

In the development of our questionnaire and clinical skills exams, we will seek feedback both within the Health Sciences at UCI and across the UC Irvine campus. We plan to share drafts of our proposed questionnaire and exam with the UCI LGBT resource center and the UCI School of Public Health prior to implementation. Finally, we expect to collaborate directly with the eQuality student group at the School of Medicine in all aspects of the planning and implementation of this project.

 

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”3″ icon=””]Challenging Liberal Order: Populist Politics from the Nazis to Today[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

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Opposition to extremism must involve in the first place an affirmation of the liberal ideas that ground our democratic order. But the rise of Nazism during the Weimar Republic made clear that it is insufficient to simply insist on liberal principles in the face of illiberal political movements. With broad sections of the population in support of populism today, it would also be necessary to make distinctions between different positions. In the first place, we would have to distinguish between the white supremacist fringe – the truly extremist right – from a broader right-wing movement that is not necessarily racist, but does question the current hierarchies that structure our political and economic order. If extremism questions the existing order, it might be related to a legitimate opposition to the way power is distributed in our society. If, in challenging extremism, we were to shut down such a discussion, we would run the risk of affirming and cementing hierarchical structures that may indeed need to be reformed. Confronting extremism then requires both careful self-examination and an ability to differentiate between related positions. Accordingly, this workshop will examine the recent rise of right-wing political movements in Germany and the U.S. in light of the historical experiences of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, when the world faced similar quandaries.

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The workshop will last 3 days from February 12 to 14. The first day will consist of a series of seminar-style discussions with students and faculty concerning texts by Carl Schmitt and Mark Bray about the rise of the Nazis and the strategies of opposition to them. The second day of discussions will look at the cultural divisions within today’s Germany by considering the complexities of its minority politics. The focus will be on texts by Zafer Senocak, Günter Senkel, Feridan Zaimoglu, Thilo Sarrazin, and Jan-Werner Müller. These texts chart the current rise of political extremism in Germany and efforts to combat it. The final day on February 14 will include a broader discussion of U.S. politics with a larger audience and additional faculty presentations. The initial discussion will consider the recent history of right-wing and left-wing movements in the U.S., including texts that have underpinned the rise of right-wing extremism by W. Cleon Skousen and Stephen Bannon, as well as left-wing texts by David Graeber, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in support of the Occupy Movement. The final event will be a larger event to be coordinated with UCI Illuminations, which will consist of a series of short presentations by Schlink and UCI faculty, including Kai Evers, Lilith Mahmud, and David Pan, that will serve as an introduction to an interdisciplinary roundtable discussion of precisely what we should be attacking and what we should be defending when confronting extremism today.

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The total projected budget is $12,700, consisting of four parts. The first part is $5000 for lodging, travel, and a $2000 honorarium for Bernhard Schlink, who is traveling from Berlin. The second part is $3300 for meal expenses, including 3 lunches, 2 dinners, and 3 coffee breaks for the 20 participants in the workshop ($2200), and then 1 dinner and 1 coffee break for the larger public event, for which we are planning for 40 attendees ($1100). The third part is $400 for publicity. The fourth part is $4000 for a publication subvention for a volume to be published that comes out of the work in the workshop. Of the total $12,700 budget, we have already received a $1500 commitment from Humanities Commons and a $500 commitment from the Department of European Languages and Studies. Our request is consequently for $10,700 from the Initiative for Understanding/Engaging with Extremism.

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The workshop will be aimed at graduate students and advanced undergraduates who interested in delving deeper into the history and origins of populist and extremist movements. We are publicizing the workshop to all graduate students on campus, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. In addition, we have also begun publicizing the workshop to colleagues in European languages at UCLA. The public panel discussion on February 14 will be organized with UCI Illuminations and will be aimed at a broader audience that is particularly interested in the US context. We will work with Illuminations to publicize this event to the entire campus, specifically targeting undergraduates interested in the topic. Finally, we will work with Bernhard Schlink to produce a book that summarizes the conclusions of the workshop. The goal is to publish this book by the end of 2018 in both English and German language editions.

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We will survey the workshop participants at the end of the workshop in order to find out about what they have gained from the workshop and how they will use the knowledge and insights in the future. In addition, we will use the workshop to establish a working group about extremism, with the goal of encouraging future collaboration and publications on the topic. Workshop participants will also be invited to contribute to a book volume. The book’s impact will be measured in terms of where it can be published, the number of copies sold, and book reviews.

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This project will provide an in-depth analysis of both a previous instance of extremist politics in early 20th century Germany as well as the history and origins of the current forms of extremism that are redefining politics in both Germany and the U.S. today. As such, it will provide to the campus community an interdisciplinary discussion and analysis of the problem of extremism. In addition, in evaluating different strategies for dealing with extremism to a wider audience beyond the campus, the workshop and resulting publications will seek to affect the broader debate about extremism in both the U.S. and Europe.

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UCI Illuminations will be co-sponsoring the final event, entitled “What is Extreme, What is Normal, and What is the Difference?”, to be held from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm on February 14, 2018, in HG 1010. This panel discussion will try and define the problem of extremism and what it means for liberal democratic institutions. We will work with Illuminations to publicize the event, especially to undergraduates.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”4″ icon=””]Civic Education in Polarized Times[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]

We live in a polarized time. The sense of “us versus them” is all around, where political ideology (i.e., liberal versus conservative) determines what we read and whom we trust. Americans are de-camping to their corners, building ideological silos (where close friends are more likely to hold similar views) and fortifying their beliefs in self-reinforcing echo chambers. In short, patterns of extreme polarization and strengthened partisanship predominate the American political landscape today, reducing not only the likelihood to “meet in the middle” but also the desire, where opposing to move from “disagreement” to “dislike” (Pew 2014). Simply put, this is bad for democracy.

One factor contributing to increased polarization and, thus, reduced democratic quality is that citizens are not taught to navigate a polarized political landscape. The existing civic education curriculum (K-12) is based on history, trivia, and minimum liberal values (like tolerance, rule of law and compliance). However, polarized times requires different skills.
This project tests a series of novel civic education interventions to reduce polarization.

Through a series of original experiments, this project assesses the effects of debate skills training, media literacy, and empathy-building on novel measures of attitudes towards ideologically-different citizens and ethnic minorities. I hypothesize each of these treatments will have an ameliorating effect on polarized attitudes, supporting education policy recommendations to re-vamp the nationwide civic education curriculum.

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Drawing on pedagogical research and civic education studies, I identified three types of civic interventions that could theoretically mediate polarized attitudes. I designed an original survey instrument to measure those attitudes (questions on affective polarization, political style, e.g., willingness to comprise, consensus versus conflictual attitudes) and plan on using the same instrument across each experimental design. This will allow for systematic analysis of treatment to control groups, as well as effects across experiments more generally.

I have planned an experiment for each intervention, making use of UCI’s Experimental Social Science Laboratory (ESSL) to recruit subjects. First, to assess the effects of debate skills acquisition, the treatment group will receive audio debate training in a lab setting and then receiving the survey instrument afterward. The control group will only receive the instrument (participating via internet). In the second experiment, to assess media literacy, the treatment group will undergo a UCI Library-resourced tutorial on fake news and filter bubbles (https://guides.lib.uci.edu/post-election-resources). In the third experiment, I will use a vignette survey design to build empathy toward different target groups (immigrant, Muslim, African American, conservative/liberal; treatments randomly vary), followed by the same instrument as the previous experiments. Each of these experiments will be fielded on the UCI population as a baseline. As a follow up, I aim to replicate each experiment on an early high-school (ages 15 & 16) sample.

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I request $20,000 (detailed herein). In accordance with UCI’s ESSL rules and procedures, each participant is paid $1.75 per minute. The survey instrument takes 10 minutes to complete. Students receiving lab treatments (debate training, media literacy, and empathy vignettes) will require additional compensation (20 minutes, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, respectively). I hope to recruit 100 individuals in both the treatment and control group of each experiment, to obtain significant findings on effect size. Funds will be transferred directly from the PI’s research account to the ESSL (a within-school transfer).

For each experiment, cost estimate is as follows:
Experiment 1 (debate training):
Control: 100 individuals x 10 min (at 1.75 per minute) = $1,750
Treatment: 100 individuals x 30 min (at 1.75 per minute) = $5,250
*Experiment 2 (media literacy):
Control: 100 individuals x 10 min (at 1.75 per minute) = $1,750
Treatment: 100 individuals x 30 min (at 1.75 per minute) = $5,250
*Experiment 3 (empathy vignettes):
Control: 100 individuals x 10 min (at 1.75 per minute) = $1,750
Treatment: 100 individuals x 20 min (at 1.75 per minute) = $3,500

Total: $19,250. I ask that an additional $750 be allocated to cover per $14 per hour assistance in designing the first experiment, which will require treatment recipients to listen to a recording providing details on debate skills (and, therefore, recording said program).

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The plan is that each of these experiments will be published in a high-impact journal (for example, Political Psychology or Political Research Quarterly). I will also use this research as a baseline for writing up external grant applications (National Science Foundation and Department of Education, as well as Horowitz, Spencer, MacArthur, and Russell Sage Foundations). The “year 2” plan, as stated, is to replicate these experiments in three area high-school settings (Santa Ana High School, University High School, and Sage Hill School). These locations vary along relevant socioeconomic and demographic dimensions, and thus potentially provide informative leverage on scope conditions and limitations of each civic program. If external funding is obtained, and experiment replications are performed in high-school settings, I will write a book to present these findings as well as submit a major article for publication in Science or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

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By using a standard survey instrument, I am able to systematically measure the effects of each treatment on civic competence, political knowledge, civic engagement, as well as political and racial attitudes. Many of these questions replicate language from standard surveys (e.g., GSS, ANES). Unique to my survey, however, are the question on political polarization and attitudes toward an ‘ideological other.’ Specifically, I ask questions along the following dimensions: (1) how much does the other side know (knowledge, interest, salience in every day life)?; (2) what are the rules/style of the political game? (willingness to compromise, consensus v. conflict, agnostic democracy); (3) how much do you ‘hate’ the other side (affective polarization through feeling thermometers, stereotypes); (4) are institutions trustworthy and functioning (trust, efficacy)?; and (5) media (sources, trust). Relevant independent variables are tapped by asking questions about cross-cutting social ties, civic behavior, civic education exposure/recall, and socioeconomic background characteristics.

With this standard instrument, I am able to look at effect size of treatment to control group for each experiment and draw generalizable conclusions about civic interventions. As such, attitudinal change produced by each treatment suggests that modifications to civic education is effective for polarized times. Confidence in this empirical grounding will then inform a series of policy recommendations for education reform to the national civic curriculum.

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This project speaks directly to goals of inclusive excellence. To wit, the central subject of the third experiment is to assess whether building empathy toward minorities (through vignette experiments) moderates polarizing attitudes. If significant, this produces a net democratic good and a positive step toward community trust. All three of these experiments contribute to UCI’s Strategic Plan as well, particularly “forging best practices to power the coming century” as well as community partnerships (year 2).

Democracy is under threat by deep political polarization. As signs continue to point to the chipping away of social solidarity, trust, and cooperation, this project advocates a proactive way forward—building intelligent citizens for a new political landscape.

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I will work with UCI’s Model United Nations competitive debate team to shape the 20-minute debate training audio for the first experiment. I will also work with UCI librarians to adapt their online literacy training into a 20-minute tutorial.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”5″ icon=”]”Community Conversations[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

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We, as a nation, are increasingly bearing witness to a rising and uncovering of beliefs and actions that test the boundaries of human respect. Recent national and local displays of hate exemplify the use of fear of our differences as a means to justify de-valuing people and reinforce beliefs in a false hierarchy of human value — a false belief that grounds extremist viewpoints. These incidents of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, racial prejudice, and other expressions of intolerance, require that we develop and support ways to challenge these fears and false hierarchies via initiatives that induce participants to come to terms with the compelling and individuated narratives of the “other.”

For 10 years, The Olive Tree Initiative (OTI) has been dedicated to producing leaders who can navigate difficult conversations and demystify their understanding of the “other.” OTI hopes to expand its programming, based on Intergroup Contact Theory and Experiential Education, so that the greater community and campus can engage in critical dialogues that confront extremism, embrace the complexity of issues addressed, and diminish prejudices and hostilities between groups.

By utilizing trained students, faculty, and staff to host critical conversations in the community via large forums, speeches at high schools, and smaller student-community meals, OTI plans to foster a more robust community where diplomacy, critical conflict analysis, and strong friendships combat the narratives leading to extremism.

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OTI plans to leverage our large number of community supporters along with our student “diplomats” to engage with participants from many faith and identity groups, across the political spectrum, both on campus and off.

The main vehicle of this programmatic expansion will be “Community Conversations,” combining larger public forums (such as the 2016 Town Hall that OTI co-hosted), high school outreach, and smaller groups of OTI students meeting with community members over meals (in the model of “Conversation Kitchen”). We will facilitate two larger Town Hall panel presentations in conjunction with our OC community partners, and two on-campus panel presentations utilizing student organization leaders. One of each of these will be in the Fall of 2018 and one each in Spring of 2019.In between would be a series of smaller, localized “conversations”at high schools or over meals where participants from different groups would be matched with community members.

To counter extremist narratives, it is imperative that people have access to purposeful dialogue and interpersonal connections to strengthen their capacity for empathy. Research on Intergroup Contact Theory and Experiential Education shows that for intergroup relations to improve, the groups need to have somewhat equal status between each other as they pursue a common goal – in this case, the goal of better understanding and empathizing with the “Other.” Milestones will of course include planning, implementation, as well as post-program follow-up.

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Multi-level approach to community outreach:
$7000, Two Community Conversations with Community Partners. Each event host 200-300 community members, modeled after successful OTI-hosted events in the past.COST BREAKDOWN PER EVENT: $500 rent/costs (ie: technology rental/use) for space, $2500 for food for event, $500 for extras like related cleaning staffing, parking or other costs.

$3000, Two on campus Community Conversations with a panel of students and community partners discussing important issues regarding Extremism. Each event host 150-200 students and community members. Events in partnership with other academic units, student clubs and community organizations.COST BREAKDOWN PER EVENT: $1000 for contribution to food/costs (co-sponsors will contribute as well), $500 for Extras (parking of guests/speakers, material and technology costs).

$5000, Ten smaller “Community Conversations” hosted by OTI at the homes of community partners or local high school partners. Each event will have 20-40 participants at a home of a community supporter/partner or at a local high school.COST BREAKDOWN PER EVENT:On average $500 per event to support/contribute to costs for food, transportation and cleaning (community supporter/partner will share some costs).

$2000, Publicity cost. COST BREAKDOWN: $800 for printing costs of flyer, posters and event programs, $1500 for recording services of larger event, $700 for related online costs of editing of footage and putting it up online.

$3000, Admin support/costs for staff time over the year to organize and assess all the proposed events

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To promote the project, we will utilize OTI students, OIT alumni, and their networks for high attendance of events, social media outreach, and flyering (for on-campus events), in addition to utilizing the email list-serves of our community partners and their promotion outlets.

The bulk of programming will take place Fall 2018 – Spring 2019 with earlier planning meetings amongst various stakeholders during Spring 2018, and post-program meetings through August 2019. The outcomes resulting from the proposed activities will be: conversations across differences, expanding cultural understanding of others, along with an increase in students, alumni, and community members interested in attending future Community Conversations. In addition, we anticipate new community and campus partnerships that will directly enhance OTI and UCI’s involvement and connection to the greater OC community, in alignment with UCI’s strategic plan. By facilitating connections on an interpersonal level, OTI students have the opportunity to host forums alongside staff and faculty, allowing for Experiential Education to support students’ professional development.

The outcomes of Community Conversations will be shared on the OTI website, presumably the Office of Inclusive Excellence website, the website of our partnering organizations, social media accounts, and potentially in future OTI publications regarding Intergroup Contact Theory and Experiential Education. The outcomes will be used to inform future programming to continue to ensure success.

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After each Community Conversation, a brief survey will go out to learn what participants gained and if they connected with someone with a different background other than themselves. Other metrics will also be analyzed to determine the success of the programs: the number of people who attend the events, number of asks for follow-up conversations, and smaller break-off group conversations. Other social media devices, like an event hashtag, can be used to quantify the engagement with the program.

Community members, high school and UCI students will engage with and be exposed to the layers of complexity of the topics addressed, countering the over-simplified and skewed news often iterated by extremist sources. Participants of the Community Conversations will also have a fuller sense of cultural competency regarding the Middle East and other areas of conflict. It is hoped that they will also feel a deeper sense of connection, or even friendship/congeniality with those they may have previously described as the “other.”

These conversations will benefit the enhance the leadership development of OTI students by bridging the gap between theory and application. Community Conversations will provide students real-life exposure to the practical application workings of intellectual concepts. To assess their leadership development and trajectory, The OTI students will be asked to give testimonies and to fill out surveys that can be compared with their post-OTI trip responses.

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Community Conversations dovetails with UCI’s strategic plan and reinforces the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Hosting conversations which use OTI student trip experiences as a tangible starting point will enable audience members from a variety of backgrounds to question the observations and opinions of OTI students. In our experience, the “particular” of these trip experiences is quickly extrapolated out to the “universal” conversations of struggles of identity, race, gender, power, economics, etc. Here is where critical learning and intergroup dialogue occurs regarding inclusion and equity. These conversations foster a robust community of critical compassionate inquiry and analysis, along with friendships, which in turn help counter the narratives which lead to extremism.

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We hope to scale-up the capacity of our UCI OTI Middle East chapter to be a greater resource to the communities surrounding the University. Last January, OTI co-sponsored a Town Hall Meeting at Bat Yahm Synagogue with leaders of all backgrounds and faiths to combat hate and bigotry, bringing together 250 participants(75 were expected). Our OTI students have hosted conversations at Tarbut V’Torah Jewish Day School, Newport Harbor and El Toro High School to discuss the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ways to create spaces that confront our biases, and the overall OTI trip/program experience. OTI has a close working relationship with the Leadership of the Anti-Defamation League who work to combat bigotry and racism. With the ADL as a consistent partner, we can count on broad community engagement as well as dissemination of program success and community enthusiasm.

Many of our community partnerships stem from the involvement in a variety of organizations and religious centers from our staff and board members, who connect the OTI community to these organizations. University Synagogue, St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church and the Orange County Islamic Foundation are all institutions willing to having students give presentations to their congregations. OTI has also been working with the Freedom Writers Foundation, the Rose Project of the Jewish Federation, and the American Muslim Women’s Empowerment Committee. We plan to utilize existing partnerships and expand to others so we may engage the community in these critical discussions.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”6″ icon=””]Confronting Extremism in Esports Lunch & Leadership Proposal[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]

Extremist rhetoric is a reality within video game culture. Esports in particular has a small but vocal sub-community who traffic in toxic, hostile, and intolerant discourse across games and game fandoms. Extremist discourse through digital media has a history of adult caregiver complicity through neglect and dismissal. Young people in the U.S. are often left to navigate digital frontiers alone, without parental mentorship, pushing the burden to institutions and organizations like schools, game developers, and web search platform providers to create “parental controls”. In December 2017, the OC Dept. of Education (OCDE) launched their High School Esports League. Our lab is working with local partners to support OCDE launch an AP course around esports and STEM Entrepreneurship for the 2018-2019 academic year. February 2018, a pilot of this curriculum will be hosted at UCI.

With the help of the Provost Initiative, we propose to augment the planned pilot in tandem with the UCI’s Esports Program to include training, resources, activities and direct modeling of nonviolent communication principles and practices to empower high school and UCI students to confront the presence and persistence of hostile, intolerant discourses they encounter. We propose, Lunch & Leadership, to supplement the planned pilot program with a leadership learning opportunity for high school and UCI esports communities as a method and means for promoting critical inquiry and public engagement on controversial topics within esports while honoring campus mandates for creating positive impacts on society.

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Lunch & Leadership is a 3 hour, 12:00n to 3:00p leadership development opportunity, on 3 of the 6 pilot program Saturdays allowing those students who are interested, to participate in both programs. The content and facilitation of Lunch & Leadership is developed in partnership with UCI’s a) Esports Program, b) Cross-Cultural Center, c) Civic and Community Engagement Minor, d) LBGTQ Mentorship Program, and e) representatives from local esports professionals including shoutcasters and game developers.

The program is an intervention for 1) OC HS Esports League participants (players and non-players) and 2) UCI esports team members and student leaders in gaming and divergent methods of conflict resolution.
-High schoolers will meet at the Cross-Cultural Center to join UCI student facilitators for lunch at noon, followed by an activity and discussion.
-UCI students will participate in 2 hours of introduction, program overview and basics of nonviolent communication training with Cross-Cultural Center (CCC) staff before the first session with high schoolers. They will join the students for lunch and facilitate activities. After the 3rd Saturday discussion we will meet for 3 hours to document and discuss successes and failures from diverse vantage points. Including solo reflection and documentation of field notes, small group discussion and intergroup sharing, compare and contrasting.

Activities are 1) Castle Building/Privilege Check Activity, 2) Non-Violent Communication Activity with student friends and family encouraged to attend, 3) Personal Skills Development.

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Expenses will be incurred for the venue, facilitator stipends, catering and materials. The Cross-Cultural Center will be the project venue, in addition to providing one-quarter of the student facilitator staff. Stipends will also be provided to 15 recognized student leaders from UCI’s Esports Program, the Civic and Community Engagement minor, and the LBGTQ mentorship program, and to esports media professionals. Estimates are based on quote received and the catered lunches quote is based on maximum invited attendees, to be reduced based on RSVP and attendance.

Total Budget $20,000

UCI CROSS-CULTURAL CENTER ($3000)
$500 – Venue: 3 Half-Days
$2,500 – Stipends: 5 student facilitators

UCI STAFF ($4500)
$4,500 – Stipends: 15 student facilitators from UCI Esports, LGBTQ Mentorship Program, Civic and Community Engagement Minor

TEMPOSTORM ($300)
$300 – Stipends for 2 shoutcasters for 2 hours

MENDOCINO FARMS CATERING ($10,000)
$10,000 – Catering for 3 lunches for 200

MATERIALS (<$2200)
$1,000 – Graphic design consistent with UCI and OCDE branding
$1,200 – Skill development activity materials (<$1200)

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Desired outcomes will be evidenced through 1) the production of web and print ready resource materials including set of “Confronting Extremism in Esports” resource materials for the UCI Esports Program and the Orange County Department of Education High School Esports League, 2) contribution to the OCDE year-long AP series Esports and STEM Entrepreneurship curriculum, 3) increased use of existing UCI resources for students and faculty that support confronting extremism, and 4) co-authored scholarly publication in the 2020 Connected Learning Summit (formerly the conference on Digital Media and Learning) outlining lessons learned and providing a framework for similar projects in other institutions.

The product of the first outcome will be press releases related to web additions on the UCI Esports and the OC HS Esports League websites. The second outcome will be communicated through course materials for the debut year of the program. The third outcome will be indirectly evidenced through greater demand on existing UCI resources designed to support students in confronting extremism with nonviolence, and the final outcome will be shared through the conference publication, presentation and extended scholarly knowledge sharing practices.

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Success metrics will likely be varied, reflecting the perspectives of the participants and facilitators (particularly as related to their training and roles on campus). We see this expected variety to contribute to the development of broader, more inclusive guidelines and resource materials that will be developed for the OCDE and UCI Esports’ Programs.

Formative Assessment: Each Saturday, the project team will support discussion with facilitators to share, document, reflect on and synthesize various indicators of successes/failures. Revisions to subsequent sessions will be made, and revisited.

Summative Assessment: A short pre and post assessment will be given to participants and facilitators with items relating to their level of confidence and club/community support in confronting extremism online and off, attitudes around their clubmates’ practices, and an open item to describe how they have/would handle hostile situations in-game and/or out-of game.

We expect that these teams of young people will reinforce each others’ nonviolent practices, both in-game and out-of game, long after the project ends. We consider this project a serendipitous community building opportunity between UCI campus organizations and a step forward along a line of scholarly inquiry. Thus, the project team will continue to meet with leadership in UCI’s a) Esports Program, b) Cross-Cultural Center, c) Civic and Community Engagement Minor, d) LBGTQ Mentorship Program, and the OC High School Esports League to reassess success metrics and evaluate outcomes.

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Lunch & Leadership is an opportunity for relationship building between campus organizations who provide resources for confronting extremist rhetoric and practices, and the vulnerable population of avid esports participants who are regularly subjected to toxic, hostile and intolerant discourses. By providing engaging space for critical dialog coupled with legitimate learning opportunities, UCI will be supporting the development of proactive and nonviolent response measures for local high school and UCI students to put into immediate practice in their in-game and out-of game communities. The pedcoagogical lessons learned will be directly implemented in both the OCDE AP curriculum and the UCI Esports Program, the first ever of its kind to provide guidance for esports participants.

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The Cross-Cultural Center will host, co-design, co-facilitate and co-author project documentation and scholarly publications.

The UCI Esports Program will co-design, co-facilitate and co-author project documentation and scholarly publications.

The OCDE HS Esports League liaison will co-design and co-author project documentation and is invited to co-author scholarly publications.

Civic and Community Engagement Minor faculty will co-design and co-author project documentation and scholarly publications, in addition to assisting in recruiting student facilitators.

The Counseling Center’s LBGTQ Mentorship Program will provide a licensed counselor who will participant in activities and act as resource for student facilitators, and student participants if needed. They will also assist in recruitment of student facilitators and are invited to co-author project documentation and scholarly publications.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”7″ icon=””]Countering Online Extremism, Protecting Freedom of Expression[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]

Countering “extremism” requires clear definitions, inter-disciplinary research, and policies and rules that promote rather than restrict freedom of expression and other fundamental human rights. Nowhere is this more the case than in online space, a virtual hotbed of extremism and nascent violence, hostility and discrimination. This hands-on, student-involved, internationally engaged project would aim to address online counter-extremism strategies within the framework of human rights law. Although the concept of extremism is unsettled and elusive, governments and private actors (especially social media and search platforms) have intensified crackdowns on extremist content online. Failure to incorporate human rights safeguards often threatens to silence vital public discourse on race, politics, religion, culture, sexuality and violence.

This project will study, identify and promote a human rights framework for dealing with extremist content online. Engaging faculty across UCI and experts from around the world, this project will identify best practices that address online extremist content in a manner consistent with international legal obligations to respect freedom of expression, privacy and related human rights. It will also examine the responsibility of companies to safeguard human rights as they develop content moderation policies, processes and technologies to target extremist content. It will also examine and evaluate alternative approaches to content regulation, such as counter-speech initiatives, interfaith dialogue, and media literacy education.

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This project will develop a human rights framework to address online extremist content through legal and policy research, engagement with faculty across campus – particularly those associated with the Forum for the Academy and the Public – and academic and public discourse.

The project will be conducted under the auspices of the International Justice Clinic at UCI Law, which provides law students with experiential training on human rights fact-finding, legal research, and advocacy. Clinic students will work with the project leaders to analyze the human rights impacts of ongoing State and private initiatives to combat online extremist content, and develop recommendations for States and internet companies on how to integrate human rights protections. This project will build on ongoing content regulation research conducted by the Clinic and Professor X, including in his capacity as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

We will organize one significant multi-stakeholder consultation at UCI in the fall of 2018. We would invite up to twenty-five individuals from academics, government, social media industry, and journalism to participate in a two-day meeting examining extremism and counter-extremism strategies. We would plan to organize at least one major public event to draw attention to UCI as a center for public-minded research on extremism. The project would result in a major report and perhaps the launch of a broader, global initiative examining online and offline responses to problems of content regulation online.

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The Online Counter-Extremism Project would benefit from the existing resources of the Law School for its foundational work, in particular the research and fact-finding conducted by the International Justice Clinic. The principal expenses would involve the organization of a major multi-stakeholder consultation to take place in the fall of 2018. We have organized and led such consultations in the past. We have the tools in terms of students and staff to develop a high quality program that integrates academic, private sector, and public policy insights into the event and subsequent reporting. However, in order to conduct a project that would represent not just American but global views of confronting extremism, it will be critical to involve participants from around the world.

While some participants in our consultation will likely be able to cover their own expenses, we expect approximately twelve individuals – from the Global South and non-profit organizations in Europe – to require travel funds. We expect such travel and two nights of lodging to total approximately $17k. Meals during the event should total approximately $3k.

We also have the possibility of requesting additional funding support, through strong relationships we have developed with the Ford Foundation and MacArthur Foundation, should that be necessary.

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Research and recommendations developed over the course of the project will be integrated into the Clinic’s work before international, regional, and domestic bodies, internet companies, the human rights community, and the general public. Such advocacy may include diplomatic communications to States, amicus briefs and expert testimony, conference presentations and panels, and blogs and op-eds, and international media availability.

We will, however, go beyond formal modes of dissemination and extend into the unique global platforms to which we have access. The Clinic, working with Professor X on UN reporting over the past three years, has developed reports for the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly, examining threats to freedom of expression online and offline (which may be seen at the UCI Sites website, https://freedex.org/). Research and recommendations developed during the course of this project will be published in UN reports or as independent policy papers. We will present our work at major events such as the Internet Governance Forum, RightsCon, and sessions of the Human Rights Council and General Assembly. The project will also develop at least one additional panel discussion or seminar on campus that promotes university-wide dialogue and public engagement on a topical issue of online extremist content regulation.

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Project outcomes and indicators of success will include: 1) the publication of reports and related papers, including formally to the United Nations, that examine human rights-oriented approaches to online extremist content; 2) consultations that generate multi-stakeholder collaboration on regulatory and other approaches to online extremist content that protect human rights, 3) the provision to international, regional, and domestic bodies (such as inter-governmental organizations, courts, legislatures, regulatory agencies) of human rights analysis and expertise regarding laws and policies on online extremist content; and 4) a curriculum designed as a set of modules, or a full course, examining content-regulation online and the tools to ensure compliance with human rights standards.

Over the short-term, project success may be judged by the completion of these four outcomes along with significant coverage in the national and international media. Over the long-term, we would anticipate success to be evaluated according to responses to the standards we propose in briefings before courts and legislative analysis we provide in capitals around the world. In other words, while the project will be rooted in rigorous policy-oriented research, we will aim toward legislative and judicial outcomes that respect human rights in counter-extremist policies.

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The project will leverage the Clinic’s expertise and UCI’s connection to the mechanisms of the United Nations in order to enhance human rights discourse concerning the local, national, and global consequences of regulating online extremist content. It will feature UCI-led and sponsored research on these issues before bodies such as the UN Human Rights Council and the European Commission. The project will also empower UCI student communities to identify and challenge the human rights impacts of security-based approaches and narratives concerning online extremist content. We have high confidence that the project will attract national and international notice and help strengthen associations people have worldwide between UCI and public-minded, human rights-oriented research.

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The project will benefit from the input of a wide range of partners, and we will work to involve one international and one local/national organization. The international partner would be ARTICLE 19, the world’s leading non-governmental organizations focused exclusively on freedom of expression. ARTICLE 19 has unparalleled expertise in the field, integrating long-term engagement with both freedom of expression as a human right and the way in which the digital age has shaped global exercise of the right. We have enjoyed several years of partnering with ARTICLE 19, which would bring to the table its substantial connections with academics and advocates worldwide.

The project would also benefit from a local actor, in particular PEN America, which has offices in Los Angeles. PEN is the leading American organization for freedom of expression. It has worked on issues associated with “countering violent extremism” in the United States and has strong connections with academic and policy communities in the United States.

Finally, we would aim to include the Anti-Defamation League, which has just launched a project looking at countering online extremism. They have an office in Northern California, and we have strong connections with ADL leadership. They would bring an important angle to the project.

All three organizations would be involved in identifying participants, enabling broad dissemination of the work, and engaging with the dialogues over extremism world wide.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”8″ icon=””]Covering the Alt-Right and the Alt-Light: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the rise of Right Wing Extremism[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]

I am writing to apply for funds to support a multi-tiered project that will culminate in the creation of an intellectual, historical and theoretical resource to help scholars and teachers understand the emergence of right-wing extremism in the forms of the Alt-Light and the Alt-Right. I would like to build conceptual frameworks that will make vital connections between denial of science, the irrationality of authoritarianism and racism. The project’s goal is to situate Alt-Right and Alt-Light ideologies in a serious technological, historical and political frame. Alt-Right and Alt-Light groups use clearly misogynistic, racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic language even as they espouse an anti-elitist message, designed to cause maximum outrage and to elicit affective responses. By providing a clearly reasoned set of terms by which study the Alt-Right and the Alt-Light, better quantitative research can emerge for understanding the appeal of youth oriented extremism in the global new media ecology. The Frankfurt School identified the core of the Fascism and Authoritarianism as irrational. I want to prove that reason can be defended as a universal value that promotes equality and justice, rather than instrumentality and exploitation.
By providing a clearly reasoned, theoretical and qualitative set of terms by which study the Alt-Right and the Alt-Light, I hope to promote better ways of dealing with the emergence of a youth oriented extremism in the global new media ecology at UC Irvine, which can be a hub for new research in this area.

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1) Raising awareness and raising the level of knowledge on campus: Convene reading group/workshops on various topics, led by UC Irvine faculty and graduate students, divided into four categories: a) New Media Ecologies, the Dark Web and /chan/ culture b) Race and Identity c) the rise of Global Right; d) the Authoritarian Personality. Participants invited from ICS, School of Social Sciences, School of Humanities
2) “Covering the Alt-Right” Conference including journalists and scholars and historians of the Extreme Right. Invitees would include journalists and scholars including Angela Nagle, Jason Wilson, Donna Minkowitz, George Hawley; include local scholars such as Vinayak Chaturvedi who works on Hindu Nationalism and Neo-Fascism in India. Create a platform for talking about LARPing, trolling and their relationship to the rise of the Extreme Right on line, using UC Irvine’s strengths in ICS and new media, including the scholars that work in the Institute for Virtual Environments and Computer Games.
3) Develop and design an on-Line Guide to studying the emergence of the Alt-Right and Alt-Light, using the resources of the Southern Poverty Law Center map of Hate Groups in the US with links to up to date coverage of Alt-Right and Alt-Light. Will provide up to date information regarding Alt-Right and Alt-Light activities on US and Global campuses.
4) Bring the On-line Guide to the Alt Light and the Alt Right to US History courses in local High Schools (where Milo Yiannapoulos has a big following). (Contacts in Irvine and Seal Beach schools already established).

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Workshops and Conference budget: 5K (total budget 10K: will raise another 5K from ICS and Schools of Humanities and Social Sciences)

On-Line Guide to the Alt-Light and the Alt-Right Web Design and Maintenance: 5K

Research and Salary for Catherine Liu: 10K

This is a research/outreach/engagement project that will take up an enormous amount of my time and effort. I’d like to see my efforts compensated.

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Collect discussions, critical papers from Workshops and Reading groups and publish on a password protect workspace

Collect conference proceedings to be published as an anthology at a peer-reviewed University Press.

Publish highlights of conference on-line.

Creation of On-Line Guide to Alt-Light and Alt-Right

Creation of tools for High School Teachers, outreach to local High Schools

All of this material is highly sensitive in nature: the Alt-Light and Alt-Right view any form of publicity as good publicity and subscribe to extreme ideas of anonymity and dissemination. We will work carefully with UC Irvine computing infrastructure to protect authors and users from Right-wing attacks and appropriations.

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The impact of this project can be measured in website visits to our on-line guide, success in publishing the conference proceedings, newspaper coverage of the events and attendance at the conference and workshops. Long-term effects can be measured in better understanding and coverage of Alt-Light and Alt-Right analysis in coursework at UC Irvine. The greatest achievement of all would be the defusing of Alt-Light and Alt-Right popularity among young people, the promotion of reasoned critique in the public and in our students. The creation of better quantitative research tools to study the Alt-Right and Alt-Right would also be a great outcome of this project.

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By providing a clearly reasoned, theoretical and qualitative set of terms by which study the Alt-Right and the Alt-Light, I hope to help quantitative researchers devise better surveys for understanding the emergence of a youth oriented extremism in the global new media ecology. The Frankfurt School identified the core of the Fascism and Authoritarianism as irrational. As scholars, we need to defend reason as a value that promotes equality and justice, rather than instrumentality and exploitation.

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I would like to take the insights we derive from studying our local Alt-Light and Alt-Right groups to work with the UC Irvine Law School Immigrant Rights Clinic. I have worked with Professors Annie Lai and Sameer Asher on other issues and I am sure they will be good partners in creating a collaborative platform for educating lawyers about Alt-Light and Alt-Right racism and anti-immigrant positions. I think providing lawyers and undocumented people with an account of anti-immigrant sentiment and movements will empower them to fight for the rights of all groups attacked by the Alt-Light an Alt-Right.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”9″ icon=””]Deconstructing Diversity Initiative[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

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Though universities embrace the concept of diversity, practicing and mandating it is an entirely different commitment. Institutions have made strides to improve access and increase diversity in numbers. But, representative diversity is insufficient. At this prime moment in the identity development of young men and women, universities must also productively utilize interactional diversity, with an emphasis on issues of power, privilege, and social justice, to realize its intended benefits (Gurin, Lehman, & Lewis, 2004; Hurtado, 1999; Tatum, 2003).

As neighborhoods continue to be segregated in our society, colleges play an increasingly prominent role in preparing students for engaging in a pluralistic society (Jayakumar, 2008; Sáenz, 2010). Homogenous pre-college experiences predispose students to seek out same-race peers and activities in college, thus institutions must deliberately seek to provide opportunities for cross-racial interaction for undergraduatesand promote diversity (Jayakumar, 2008).

The University of California system has some of the most diverse campuses in the United States, which allows for more inter-racial learning and experiences but also creates a higher potential for inter-racial tensions. UC Irvine in particular has a very diverse campus and can point to many successes of its diversity programming but also shows some of the challenges of inter-racial/ethnical relations on campus. The Deconstructing Diversity Initiative (DDI), seeks to address these concerns about the campus racial climate.
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Many race relations programs focus almost exclusively on awareness, knowledge, and behavior towards persons of color. There is limited emphasis on addressing diversity. By raising awareness of certain racial—and particularly, ethnic—realities, DDI hopes to increase the depth and breadth of learning, understanding, and ultimately, acceptance of racial and ethnic differences both within and beyond college campuses.

The mission of DDI is to promote improved race relations by reducing racial and ethnic prejudice, and improving cross-cultural and intergroup relations through rigorous academic preparation, experiential education and leadership development. The program prepares students to engage in a diverse environment, and equips them to be agents of change within their campus community.

The DDI program is based on the positive intergroup contact model (Schoem, et all., 2001; Zúñiga, et al., 2007) and the underlying theory is the Theory of Intergroup Dialogue, which asserts the educational and social benefits of cross-racial interactions that create opportunities for social contact in a shared environment where the groups have equal status and work toward a common goal (Allport, 1954; Hurtado, 2003; Sáenz, 2010).
The program includes regular dialogues across race both in the classroom setting and through travel to sites of current or historical racial conflict (San Francisco, Alabama, New Orleans, Arizona) to hear first-hand the perceptions and experiences of causes and possible solutions to the respective race issues.

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Although in it’s third year, the seed money from the Chancellor’s office has run out and the program is still in need of funding, especially as it now reaches out to local high schools with its diversity training component, and also seeks approval as a multicultural/diversity general education course. The following is an outline of related expenses:
staff director salary: $36,000
Staff director benefits:$10,757
Graduate Assistant: $5,000
Admin Assistant: $2,000
Food, honorariums, incidentals: $12,000
Airfare: $12,500
Lodging: $8,000
Bus/Uber: $4,000

Total: $90257

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The program will be widely advertised throughout the campus via email, fliers, various web outlets, and word of mouth from faculty, staff and student partners. A program website is under construction.

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DDI will measure the impact of the program through multiple likert-scale surveys and students’ open-ended journals, collected at multiple points in time: at the beginning of the program, before, and after trips, and at the end of the program. The following will be measured: changes in perception of campus climate; changes in level of empathy and forgiveness; changes in understanding of race issues and systems of oppression; changes in motivation to be agents of change to improve relations and campus climate.

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Many race relations programs focus—almost exclusively—on awareness, knowledge, and behavior towards persons of color. Although some may include the treatment of and attitudes toward a racial, ethnic or religious group, there is limited emphasis on addressing diversity. By raising awareness of certain racial—and particularly, ethnic—realities, DDI increases depth and breadth of learning, understanding, and ultimately, acceptance of racial and ethnic differences both within and beyond college campuses.
DDI provides students, faculty and community participants with the education, training and experiences needed to better understand, negotiate and resolve racial and ethnical tension. Additionally, the program develops leaders for campus and community programs aimed to improve relations.

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DDI has several partners on the campus, including the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, the office of Inclusive Excellence, and the Chancellor’s Advisory Board on Campus Climate. In the community, through it’s high school diversity training program, DDI will partner with more than 10 high schools in Orange County.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”10″ icon=””]Digital Extremism: Understanding and Confronting the Alt-right’s Digital Toolkit[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

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Recent elections have been marred by accusations of interference by social media campaigns targeting specific demographics with disinformation and propaganda. Political advisors, scholars, data analysis professionals, and social media platforms realized they needed a crash course in the use and abuse of the marriage between predictive analytics and digital content. Universities have only just begun to teach digital media literacy alongside traditional forms of critical inquiry. The targeted use of social media platforms for disinformation spotlights the need to step up our efforts. We will invite a prominent expert in the alt right’s digital tools to teach undergraduate and graduate students how digital disinformation is created and spreads online. We will also bring faculty from Universite catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium, who initiated a UCI/UCL collaboration on populism and digital media. We propose a series of events and workshops featuring Dr. Joan Donovan, of the Data and Society Institute in New York. Data and Society was formed to study the social and legal dimensions of our data-centric society. Donovan is the Data and Society Media Manipulation Research Lead, and heads a team investigating the methods and sources of digital media manipulation. She is at the forefront of advising technology companies on how their platforms have become the primary outlet for the alt-right, and on how white nationalists in the US are creating their own information infrastructures to shape public debate.

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We will organize the following:

-a public dialogue between Dr. Donovan and Professor X (Informatics), moderated by Y (Anthropology), on the topic of digital media manipulation. This will be open to the public, for students, faculty and community members.

-a half-day graduate workshop facilitated by Dr. Donovan on how to study the tools of digital extremism. The workshop will be coordinated with Z’s NSF-funded Technology, Law and Society interdisciplinary group of graduate students. They will work with Dr. Donovan ahead of time to develop a curriculum and a set of practical, hands-on exercises for this workshop, which will be open to all interested graduate students. They will then develop from the workshop a teaching module on digital extremism.

-an undergraduate seminar conducted by Dr. Donovan with the UC Irvine Climate Council through its Kitchen Conversation program to provide an intimate setting to learn and discuss the alt right’s digital tools. It will also focus on how to reimagine digital civics. We have already secured the participation of the Climate Council Kitchen Conversations coordinator and are reserving April 4 and April 5.

-a half-day faculty workshop to draft a grant proposal for the UCI/UCL Populism Project, aligned with EU funding opportunities and UCL’s newly funded European Studies Chair, which will be supporting research across Europe on the failing idea of “Europeanness.” The proposal writing activity will also include brainstorming on possible US or European funders, including philanthropic and foundation support.

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Expenses are associated with travel, lodging and meals for three visitors; an honorarium for Dr. Donovan; and room rental/refreshments for workshops. Kitchen Conversation funds will be used for the Kitchen Conversation component of this activity. Expenses estimated using UC Irvine’s per diem rate and searches for flights, as indicated below. Calculated for LAX arrival and departure to ensure fewer layovers. Funds will be managed by the Social Sciences Dean’s Office.

Airfare
1 domestic (Donovan), JFK-LAX, $500
2 international (Servais, Mazzocchetti), Brussels-LAX, $1700

Ground transportation, LAX-Irvine, $150 each way, $600

Lodging
4 nights at Hotel Irvine, 3 rooms @ $150 each, $1800

Meals for visitors, 3 days, $62/day per diem, $558

Workshops
Room rentals $300
Refreshments $2000
Lunch for Populism Project workshop $1500

Honorarium-Donovan $5000

TOTAL REQUESTED $13,958

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Advertising/Marketing: Marketing of the public lecture and graduate workshop will be undertaken by the School of Social Sciences Communications and Marketing team.

Dissemination of undergraduate workshop: We will video record Dr. Donovan’s Kitchen Conversation workshop for editing and dissemination.

Dissemination of graduate workshop outcomes: The curriculum designed for the graduate workshop will be posted on the website of the Tech, Law and Society NSF-funded project. It will also be distributed to the sister centers around the country spotlighting the intersection of digital technology, law and society. The teaching module subsequently developed by the graduate students will be disseminated to instructors of relevant classes at UC Irvine and will also be posted on the Tech, Law and Society website. Graduate students will collaborate on an article for the Data & Society Newsletter. Dr. Donovan will also lead students in an exercise to write an op ed for possible submission to the Los Angeles Times or a similar venue.

Dissemination of UCI/UCL Populism Project outputs: The outputs for this component will be draft grant proposals which will be submitted to funding agencies and also posted on the Tech, Law and Society website.

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Milestones and markers of success include successfully carrying out the events described above, as well as (1) a teaching module devised by the Tech Law and Society graduate students on digital extremism; (2) grant proposals by the UC Irvine/UCL Populism Project team.

Student attendance at the public forum and the Kitchen Conversation will be a key measure of the success of this set of activities. One optimistic outcome might be the formation of a student club devoted to fostering good digital civics, or the integration of programs to bring awareness of digital civics and digital extremism into existing student clubs’ activities (such as the newly formed Blockchain@UCI club, for which Z serves as faculty advisor).

Grant submissions and extramural funding for more sustained research and written products deriving from the Populism Project will serve as another measure of success.

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Understanding the alt right’s digital tools is crucial to confronting extremism. Sophisticated disinformation campaigns take place online through targeted social media campaigns. By inviting Data and Society’s lead researcher on such media manipulation we will provide UCI students with the opportunity to learn from the head of a research team who is advising social media companies and tracking the digital tools and techniques of extremism. By providing a public forum, a graduate workshop to develop curricula for future use, and leveraging the Kitchen Conversations platform, we ensure broad audiences both during and after Dr. Donovan’s visit. Inviting the UCL team to UCI will further an existing collaboration and lead to grant-writing on digital media and populism.

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Data and Society, https://datasociety.net/: Dr. Joan Donovan from Data and Society will visit the campus. We will use the Data and Society digital platform to disseminate project activities.

Universite catholique de Louvain, Belgium: UCI Social Sciences has been involved in faculty and student exchanges with UCL for a number of years. In October 2017, UCL held an “Irvine week” featuring faculty from Social Sciences, Humanities, and Information and Computer Sciences. The proposed activity leverages this partnership given the recent UCI/UCL collaboration project on populism and the digital.

Kitchen Conversations, Campus Council on Climate: We have already secured the participation of the Kitchen Conversations program which is holding the dates of April 4 and 5 for the conversation with Dr. Donovan, probably with recipes from Cooking Up Trouble: Recipes to Nourish Women.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”11″ icon=””]Exclusion, Difference and Empathic Involvement as a Way to See the Humanity of “the Other”[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

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How can we best combat extremism that leads to discrimination, dehumanization and ill treatment of others? The project proposed here assumes the driving force behind extremism emanates from fear of differences, especially our fear of those not” like us”. Social identity theory provides a useful theoretical framework to understand this fear. How do we counter-act our need for differentiation as a part of our basic identity construction and still find a way to honor individual differences that make us the unique individuals we are while setting this in the context of a common humanity in which each individual difference is honored precisely because of the unique quality that makes us separate, unalike, diverse?

A pilot project asks whether empathy is the answer. Can empathic involvement with those who are “different” be fostered by spending time with people we fear or simply may not know well enough to comprehend their reality? Students in the Ethics Center summer internship program will conduct interviews with people discriminated against in contemporary America, taking an oral history and asking about discrimination. These interviews will be put in the Archives of UCI’s Ethics Center, so others can view the interviews and learn about the important work done on prejudice at UCI. Tests of tolerance, such as the Implicit association tests, will be given at the beginning and end of the program to assess the value of project. If the program is successful in year one, we will try during the second year to develop a way to have this program put on-line.
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The project/course begins by suggesting that the key to understanding the politics of difference is not to think of cultural differences as intrinsic and immutable but rather as the result of how these differences are shaped and perceived – by one’s self and by others — through a cognitive classification of one’s self and of one’s self in relation to others. The premise underlying the course is that much of our treatment of others results not from rational calculus of interests that flow naturally from innately derived and immutable differences – such as race, gender, ethnicity,age, or religion—but rather from the moral salience accorded these differences via a cognitive categorization and classification of others in relation to ourselves.

Pedagogical Methodology. The pedagogical premise of the project is that students learn best not by listening to lectures but by being forced to examine their own preconceptions in the light of empirical evidence. Hence the course involves extensive interviews and writing about students’ thoughts on “difference”. Participants will be asked to examine their own attitudes toward members of groups often underrepresented or discriminated against in contemporary American society. This will be done via a series of written assignments in the form of essays/journal entries and culminating in a final interview/term paper, based on the interview. IATs given before and after the project will be discussed as part of the student’s consideration of their own prejudice and whether empathy can minimize prejudice.

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Summer 2018, 6-week program through Ethics Center. Two Tobis Fellows @ $3K each to work with 20 students, handle administrative work, IRB, etc. Staff, lunch for students provided via UCI Ethics center (roughly $1-2 K, provided by Ethics Center, not part of budget request here)
from local area (UCI college, local college students and local high school students)
1month summer salary Kristen Monroe ($5K) to supervise, train and work with Tobis Fellows and students. Training in interviewing, narrative analysis and filming.
2 digital tape recorder, 1 camera (estimate $500)

Course: Winter 2019. Course: Prejudice and Empathy: The Politics of difference. Taught by Professor Monroe.

Summer 2019. 6-week intern program through Ethics Center. Two Tobis Fellows @ $2K each to work with 20 students, administrative, etc. Staff, lunch for students provided via UCI Ethics center (roughly $1-2 K, provided by Ethics Center, not part of budget request here)
from local area (UCI college, local college students and local high school students)
1month summer salary Kristen Monroe ($4K) to supervise, train and work with Tobis Fellows and students. Training in interviewing, narrative analysis and filming.
Total requested: $19,500

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Dissemination. We will work with Imagine Media, a film company focusing on the transmission of ethical values, with special focus on the “disabled.” If successful, we will include all films on an on-line website, through the UCI Ethics Center and the Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity, so others not at UCI can view this program and perhaps begin one at their own school. Our long-range goal is to develop an online program that can foster empathy for those deemed “different”.

Follow-up. In addition to the summer internship program (summer 2018 and 2019), we also will propose a course on the Ethics and Politics of Difference, an upper-division writing course to be taught in the Department of Political Science. Both this course and the internship will begin with a series of questions designed to help students understand prejudice and violence based on prejudice, with special emphasis on the fact that differences do not naturally carry ethical salience, So, for example, there is no innate reason why skin color or religion or ethnic background should matter politically. The ethical salience of such differences is totally arbitrary and socially constructed.

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The pedagogical premise of the project is that students learn best not by listening to lectures but by being forced to examine their own preconceptions in the light of empirical evidence. Participants will be asked to examine their own attitudes toward members of groups often underrepresented or discriminated against in contemporary American society. Writing and self-analysis are critical to the project/course. Students thus will do extensive writing as part of the project/course, since the evidence suggests that reflection is associated with empathy. Students will be trained in interviewing, editing and narrative interviews, as a tool to understanding the psychology of another. After training in this technique, each student will be asked to focus closely on three people to interview, six if time permits. Student will be asked to construct a list of questions for interviewing an elderly person, to conduct and transcribe this interview, edit the transcribed interview in order to capture the speaker’s voice, and develop the interview into a completed paper that uses the speaker’s voice to inform the student’s analysis of the critical aspect of the speaker, including the speaker’s mindset, emotional terrain, values, beliefs, and world view. The same technique will be followed for people with disabilities, immigrants, people of color, etc. Various test for tolerance, given before and after the intervention, will assess shifts in prejudice. Students will discuss their scores on these tests, their reactions to them, and ask how valid the tests are.

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An intervention/course that examines the ethical importance of difference strikes deep at the root of the violence and exclusion that plagues contemporary American society. Why are ethnic, racial, or religious differences frequently politically significant while differences in height, musical ability, or physical agility are not? Students need to consider this question, as they go out into a world where they will meet new people, from diverse cultures, religions, and ethnicities. Understanding the way we approach differences is critical to understand extremism. The proposed intervention will encourage students to think deeply about their own attitudes toward people judged “different”, however that difference is defined.

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Imagine Media, Larry Rothstein head. We have spoken with Rothstein about the possibility of further filming, perhaps a PBS documentary on discrimination. “Imagine Media focuses on discrimination, especially that based on disabilities. Their most recent project is a nationally-acclaimed PBS documentary with Ken Burns and Artemis Joukowsky, on rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, documenting the work of the Sharps, two of only five Americans to receive the Yad Vashem Medal.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”12″ icon=””]Interrogating the Character and Persistence of Science Denialism: The Case of the Anti-Vaccine Movement[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]

Skepticism about science, ranging from doubts about its relevance to certain issues to outright denial of its veracity, has received considerable attention in the popular media in recent years (See “The War on Science,” National Geographic, March 2015, pp. 30-47; “The Mistrust of Science,” The New Yorker, June 10, 2016, online; “The War on Science at the EPA,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2017, p. A11). The March 2015 National Geographic cover story on the war on science, for example, referenced claims that “climate change does not exist”, “evolution never happened”, “the moon landing was fake”, “vaccinations can lead to autism”, and “genetically modified food is evil”. Of the various questions that might be asked about this widely-noted scientific skepticism and/or denialism, we propose to examine two of them. First, is this skepticism/denialism generalized across science or is it domain- or issue-specific? That is, does the skepticism apply to all applications of science, and is thus generalizable, or does it more typically apply to specific domains or issues, such as evolution, or climate change, or vaccination? And second, how do we account for the maintenance/persistence of skeptical and denialist beliefs in science in the face of countervailing evidence? The answers to both questions hold important implications for addressing and intervening in science denialism/skepticism. We propose to interrogate these two overlapping questions empirically by examining vaccine skepticism as manifested in the anti-vaccine movement in Southern California.

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Two orienting propositions, corresponding to the above focal questions, guide the inquiry: 1) the scientific skepticism of anti-vaccine adherents tends to be heavily skewed in the direction of domain-specific rather than generalized denialism; and 2) the persistence of skepticism about the positive effects of vaccine immunization is dependent on group- and network-based “immunization” that neutralizes or bypasses the reams of countervailing scientific evidence. We will examine these propositions by studying the anti-vaccination movement, principally in southern California (LA metropolitan area, Orange County, and San Diego metropolitan area) through a set of interconnected fieldwork data collection procedures, including semi-structured face-to-face interviews with anti-vaccine adherents, ethnographic observation of relevant conferences and panel discussions, and assessment of online message boards. Southern California is a region that is ideally suited to carrying out this project, given the pockets of undervaccinated communities with the consequential threat to herd immunity in more than 1 in 4 schools (California Department of Public Health), the subsequent statewide legislative push to mandate vaccines in response, and the ongoing mobilization of vaccine skeptics. Initially, the proposed research will build its informant/interview base by utilizing the set of movement-related contacts established in co-investigator Colin Bernatzky’s 2017 MA thesis in Sociology, and then extend the reach of our informant contacts and expand the breadth of information solicited.

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We envision the study covering a year and a half period, beginning July 1, 2018, and ending December 31, 2019. Within that period, the plan is for a graduate student research assistant (Colin Bernatzky) to be employed 50% in the summers of 2018 and 2019 to conduct the planned interviews and data analysis. Additionally, travel reimbursement has been incorporated within the budget, since it is anticipated that interviews and related fieldwork will be conducted across the southern California region. Since the interviews will be open-ended, but semi structured, it is important to have high end voice recorder, with the estimated funds incorporated. Finally, the estimated funds for travel to two relevant conferences to present the study findings have been incorporated. Added together, these items, as indicated below, total approximately $20,000. We are willing to adjust the budget if necessary, but we thought it best to include what we think makes for an ideal budget for the proposed research.

> Salary for GSR Step V for 3 months for
summer 2018 and 2019, at 50% effort: $13,727.
> Benefits at 3% of salary during summer: 412.
> Travel mileage reimbursement, 142 miles monthly over
* 12 months in year one @ $ .535 per mile: 912.
> Voice recorder for interviews: 154.
> Travel to scientific conference, once per year (includes airfare,
lodging, per diem, ground transportation): 4,795.
TOTAL $20.000.

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Our dissemination plan is threefold. First, we will distribute our formal report to the California Department of Public Health, to the state county health departments most impacted by the anti-vaccination movement, and to the California Department of Education and the impacted school systems within the broader system. Second, we will present our findings at the most relevant professional conferences, such as the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association and American Public Health Association. And third, we will seek to craft several articles for publication consideration in relevant scientific professional journals.

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Research procedures for this project will be conducted in accordance with best practices on qualitative data collection and analysis as well as UCI’s IRB protocol. Data will be cross-checked and triangulated by engaging in multiple interrelated methodological approaches, including in-depth interviews, ethnographic observation and content analysis of online message boards. Findings, as they evolve, will be shared with key stakeholders throughout the project duration in order to continually verify and refine the analysis generated by our fieldwork. Contingent on the specific content of our fieldwork data, we may elect to evaluate our findings through methods such as qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) or social network analysis (SNA). Successful project outcomes will include the completion of at least no fewer than 35 in-depth, field interviews with vaccine skeptics, including parents (25), movement organizers (5), and sympathetic physicians (5), and the subsequent formulation of empirically demonstrable theoretical propositions that account for the persistence of skeptical/denialist beliefs in the face of countervailing evidence.

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With the passage of S.B. 277 in 2015, California mandated vaccines as a condition to attend school, setting off a contentious debate about public health and indilvidual liberty. While this legislation has improved vaccination rates, vaccine skeptics quickly devised workarounds to the law and are continuously seeking to challenge the legislation in court. By developing a more in-depth and nuanced understanding of vaccine-hesitant and vaccine-refusing citizens, this proposed project promises not only to advance social science understanding of the character and maintenance/persistence of skepticism and denialism with respect to vaccines, but also aims to assist public health professionals to better engage with and respond to the logic and concerns of skeptical citizens, especially parents.

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Both Professor X and Grad Student Y are affiliates of UCI’s Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy, which fosters academic research and education to provide a better understanding of the democratic process. Science denialism not only represents a growing social movement—a key emphasis of the Center—but an existential threat to democratic processes, making the Center for Study of Democracy an ideal partner for this project. The Center routinely hosts research conferences and lectures, thus providing a platform to disseminate the findings from this project both on campus and to the broader community.

In addition, we expect to involve the Orange County Health Care Agency (OCHCA) during the course of the project. OCHCA seeks to protect and promote the health of Orange County residents through treatment and care, assessment and planning, and prevention and education. OCHCA was one of the principal organizations responsible for containing the 2014-2015 measles outbreak at Disneyland and continues to work towards increasing vaccination rates in Orange County. We will collaborate with OCHCA throughout the project period, with the ultimate goal of using the project findings to improve communication strategies aimed at neutralizing vaccine skepticism and denialism.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”13″ icon=””]Looking beyond science to confront climate change denialism[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]

Climate change denialism is alive and well. President Trump has called climate change a “hoax” in stark contrast to the scientific consensus that human-caused global warming threatens the planet. The disconnect is also apparent locally. UCI is a global leader in climate science and engineering with strengths in physical climate modeling, biological feedbacks to climate, energy and transportation systems, integrated assessment, and climate impacts such as drought and sea level rise. Juxtaposed against this expertise are the views of Orange County Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Vice Chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, who believes that “global warming is not manmade.”

Our project addresses the question of why scientists, including those at UCI, have largely failed to counter extreme viewpoints on climate change. We posit that a rift between STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and non-STEM fields inhibits the communication of climate science and solutions to decision makers and vulnerable communities. This divide allows climate denial to persist because scientific advances are not placed in a compelling human and social context. Rather than assuming that climate denialism can be overcome mainly through science, STEM scholars may need to coordinate with experts in policy, public health, social sciences, education, law, arts, and humanities to tackle climate challenges. Consequently, the overall goal of this project is to identify the institutional and social impediments to the acceptance of climate science and the need for solutions.

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We aim to confront climate denialism by evaluating our institutional structure, creating collectively-identified mechanisms for greater integration across campus, and hosting a climate summit with listening sessions to build connections with the community. These activities will achieve the following milestones: 1) Analyze current climate research strengths and collaborations at UCI; 2) Determine what academic disciplinary barriers or cultural disconnects inhibit action to mitigate climate change risks; 3) Identify new opportunities for cross-disciplinary integration and policy impact at local to national levels.

To address Milestones 1 and 2, we will lead a study of the UCI institutional systems involved with climate research and its social impacts. Using ethnographic approaches including surveys and interviews, we will address the following questions: How do UCI climate researchers interact across disciplines and institutional sub-systems? What are the barriers to broader social engagement and acceptance of climate science at local to national levels? What institutional mechanisms, programs, or infrastructure would increase the social impact of UCI climate research? To address Milestone 3, we are organizing a climate solutions summit that will facilitate interactions among UCI researchers, community stakeholders, and decision makers including Members of Congress. The summit will promote civil discourse on climate change and initiate a broad, ongoing conversation about climate solutions.

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GSR stipend $11,215
GSR tuition and fees $5777
GSR benefits $222
Conference food $2786
Total $20,000

We request three months (one quarter) of Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) support (50% effort) and one month of summer support at a stipend rate of $4486/mo ($11,215 total stipend). Resident tuition and fees are $17,332/yr, or $5777 for one academic quarter. Graduate student benefits are 1.3% for the academic year and 3% for the summer ($222 total). All expenses are derived from UCI salary scales and published tuition rates.

The GSR will lead the primary research for the project. This role includes conducting interviews and surveys, meeting with members of the climate research community inside and outside UCI, analyzing data, assisting with the climate summit organization, and writing up the products from the project. The GSR will be co-supervised by Drs. X, Y, and Z and will be mentored in accordance with Graduate Division policy, including the formulation of an Individual Development Plan. Dr. X will obtain IRB approval for human subjects research.

We also request $2786 toward summit food costs. The Chef’s Choice Lunch Buffet at the Beckman Center is quoted at $36/person for 240 attendees for a total of $8640. The remainder of the food costs will be covered by other summit co-sponsors (e.g. Newkirk Center). The summit organizing committee and Dr. Z’s home department (EEB) will provide budgetary oversight and ensure compliance with UCI fiscal policies.

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This project will generate a written product (i.e. dissertation chapter, publication, or white paper) that identifies barriers to acceptance of climate research and provides recommendations for building institutional capacity in this area. In addition, the summit organization and implementation will build a foundation for new collaborations, scholarly activities, educational programs, and infrastructure. For example, advances and successes from the project will be incorporated into the educational program of the Ridge to Reef NSF Graduate Research Traineeship recently awarded to UCI with Dr. Z as PI.

We are hosting a full-day climate solutions summit at the UCI Beckman Center on May 30, 2018, timed to correspond with the Memorial Day congressional recess. Registration will be open to 240 attendees with targeted invitations to community and business leaders, stakeholders, and academics. A morning plenary session will describe the breadth of climate research at UCI, and an afternoon plenary will feature a prominent lawmaker with interests in climate solutions. We are organizing concurrent morning and afternoon breakout sessions on topics ranging from sea level rise to climate education. The breakouts will identify community research needs through a listening session structure with expert panels, discussion facilitators, and scribes. A cross-disciplinary committee of UCI faculty is organizing the summit which will be co-sponsored by the Newkirk Center and other UCI and non-UCI entities. Lunch and an afternoon reception will be provided to summit attendees.

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We postulate that climate change denial persists due to a lack of impactful collaboration between scientists and other scholars, especially humanists and social scientists. Without adequate messaging and human context, climate science exists in a vacuum, easily discounted for lack of social relevance. To assess this idea, we will analyze the network of interactions among researchers in different disciplines at UCI. We will develop a rubric for tracking and evaluating cross-disciplinary collaborations based on research outcomes such as publications, grants, reports, outreach activities, and social/policy communications (Milestone 1). A new rubric is required because there are different perceptions and definitions of impact across fields. We will also use surveys and interviews to identify perceived barriers to acceptance of climate research and avenues for improvement (Milestone 2). These techniques will be applied in April 2018 and January 2019 to measure progress over time.

To assess Milestone 3, we will interview the summit organizers and observe participants. The data collected will address: 1) What are the social characteristics and expectations of UCI’s potential policy and stakeholder community partners? 2) What community engagement mechanisms, programs, or infrastructure would increase the policy impact of UCI climate research? After the summit, we will conduct a series of follow-up interviews with participants to identify changes in stakeholder expectations, progress toward overcoming barriers, and programs under development that promote climate action.

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This project confronts extremism by dissecting the institutional and cultural barriers that frustrate scientists’ attempts to impact policy and counter climate change denialism. New lines of communication and collaboration established through our work will challenge extreme viewpoints by providing a stronger human and social context for climate science and action. Our climate solutions summit will give the community a voice in framing climate research priorities at UCI and help dispel notions that addressing climate change is unnecessary, futile, or too costly. Project outcomes will build on UCI’s leadership in climate science to empower an ongoing civil discourse about the most effective ways to reduce the threat of climate change.

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New partnerships on and off campus will help overcome barriers to collaboration. This project will develop a partnership between the Humanities Commons, directed by Dr. X, and climate scientists, led by Dr. Z and including Earth system scientists Dr. Kate Mackey and Dr. Eric Rignot. Using leveraged funds from existing programs, we will co-host speakers and training workshops for students, including a climate communications lecture by a prominent writer this spring. Dr. Y will oversee the assessment of current partnerships on and off campus to identify where additional collaboration would be beneficial. An explicit goal of the climate solutions summit is to strengthen or develop community partnerships that will mitigate climate extremism and create opportunities to implement climate solutions.

As an example of the partnerships we hope to facilitate, we point to Dr. Z’s collaboration with the Irvine Ranch Conservancy, a local non-profit that manages 35,000 acres of open space in Orange County. Through UCI’s Center for Environmental Biology, Dr. Z has developed research and educational programs that address management needs for local ecosystems vulnerable to climate change. This partnership demonstrates how UCI scientific research can support cost-effective solutions to environmental challenges such as drought, wildfire, and invasive species that are exacerbated by climate change. Dr. Y engages in analogous activities through Water UCI and its partners including the Irvine Ranch Water District and the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”14″ icon=””]Reducing ideological extremism by promoting civil disagreement and cultivating bipartisan empathy among students: A pedagogical experiment[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]

In recent years, colleges have grown increasingly ideologically polarized, fomenting extremist tendencies among students and faculty. An emerging narrative has pit two core values of higher education against each other. On one hand, free speech advocates have argued that the right to the free and open exchange of ideas has been chilled in the name of inclusivity. On the other hand, passionate defenders of the need for universities to foster a safe and trusting atmosphere that allows students of all backgrounds to thrive have felt these opportunities undermined by the expression of hateful ideas.

That these debates are occurring on university campuses offers a rare learning opportunity. As many have argued, free speech and minority rights needn’t be placed in opposition; in the long run, the freedom of expression is a great facilitator—not detractor—of minority voices. However, given the extremist psychology that often dominates these debates, those arguments are rarely heard.

We propose engaging the UCI campus in a day-long festival that doubles as a rigorous pedagogical experiment. Students will be exposed to three talks by thought leaders on the topics of extremism, free speech, inclusion, and cross-group empathy. Critically, we will leverage psychological measures to assess the short- and long-term impacts the festival has on the social climate of the UCI campus. We predict such an intervention can have significant and measurable network effects on cross-group empathy and conciliation—tempering extremism across campus and serving as a model for other universities.

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The festival, planned for Spring or Fall 2018, will feature talks by three high-profile, nationally-recognized public intellectuals targeted at an undergraduate audience:

1. Greg Lukianoff (president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and writer of numerous books and articles on free speech) will be invited to speak directly to the importance of free speech in and outside academia, and specifically discuss its positive role for minority rights.

2. Jonathan Haidt (NYU social psychologist, NYT best-selling author, and expert on group ideology) will be invited to discuss the psychology of group ideology and polarization, and the importance of a diversity of viewpoints on campuses.

3. Robb Willer (Professor of Sociology at Stanford, popular TED speaker, and expert on political psychology) will be invited to discuss concrete evidence-based steps on how to reduce political polarization and extremism, and foster cross-group empathy.

As we have professional relationships with each of these figures, we expect a high likelihood of them accepting our invitation.

Following each 45-minute long talk, there will be an extended 45-minute Q&A period, with priority given to undergraduate questioners. The day will end with workshop sessions, moderated by the organizers and speakers, in which students will be asked to apply what they learned to how they might combat extremism and promote more empathic dialogue in their lives and communities. Encouraging open dialogue and sharing in a supportive environment will promote cross-group competency and understanding.

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We are seeking funds to cover the costs of the one-day festival, including speaker fees and accommodations, event-related expenses (e.g., venue, food), and the assessment of its effectiveness for combating extremism among students (see Assessment Plan).

Total budget: $20,000

For each speaker, $1,500 for travel, lodging and meal costs, and $2,000 for an honorarium will be budgeted for a total of $10,500.

$8,000 will be earmarked for campus venue and food costs.

$1,500 will be earmarked for the administration of the psychological measures before and after the event, including the cost of raffled prizes to incentive completion of the surveys.

Separate funds will be sought from the school of Social Ecology to fund dinners with the speakers and select faculty.

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The day-long festival will be open to all UCI students and faculty. The festival will be promoted via newsletters, email lists, and courses to ensure a high level of interest and participation. In collaboration with the UCI Office of Inclusive Excellence and the Confronting Extremism initiative, we hope to livestream (and record) the festival to make it accessible to members of the broader Orange County community and public. Guided by feedback from the students, and through analyses of the survey data gathered before and after the festival, the organizers will develop a report and one or more publications about the key features of the festival that the students found to be more beneficial and less beneficial in terms of influencing the strength of their own ideological convictions, as well as their feelings of empathy, connection, and openness toward people who espouse differing viewpoints. This report will be disseminated to relevant university officials locally and elsewhere and will be submitted for publication to journals concerned with the psychology of cultural and ideological diversity (e.g., Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology). It is our hope that this festival, which we believe will yield measurable improvements in promoting cross-group empathy and tempering ideological differences on campus, can provide a scalable model for other university campuses to follow.

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The organizers’ expertise in ideological extremism, empathy, and prejudice makes them uniquely equipped to study and help implement social connection and understanding across ideological divides. We will test the effectiveness of the one-day festival for promoting cross-group empathy and understanding, and tempering extremism among students. Students attending the talks and workshop will first complete an online survey consisting of a battery of psychological measures one week prior to the festival. In particular, we will administer measures of:

1. Intellectual humility and attitude strength, to assess the conviction with which students hold and express their beliefs to the exclusion of opposing viewpoints;

2. Feelings of warmth, empathy, and openness toward opposing political and ideological groups, to assess bias against individuals who hold beliefs different from one’s own;

3. Dehumanization of ideological outgroups, to assess the extent to which they are delegitimized and deprived of protections otherwise afforded to “people”;

4. Likelihood of engaging in cross-group dialogue and interaction, to assess willingness to engage and interact with members of ideological outgroups.

Students will be asked to complete these measures again the day following the festival, as well as a third time two weeks later. In so doing, we will assess both the short- and long-term effects of the day-long festival for promoting bipartisan empathy and civil discourse, tempering extremism on campus, and fostering connection and understanding across ideological divides.

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Both the free exchange of ideas (even and especially challenging ones) and the embracement of a diverse body of students are integral to a thriving university. Our proposed festival will not only advertise UCI’s commitment to both of these values, but empirically test the effect that these types of discussions have on campus climate. By showing how institutions can not only reconcile the two values, but explain how they can operate in service of each other, UCI has the opportunity to be a model to other campuses. In light of 2017’s campus flare-ups in which free speech and minority voices have been pitted against each other, and against the backdrop of a politically polarized country in which higher education has become an active front of the culture war, such a model is sorely needed.

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Given the broad relevance and appeal of the festival, we anticipate working with multiple campus partners to ensure a high level of participation, support, and impact. We hope to work with Michael Dennin, Dean of the Division of Undergraduate Education and Vice Provost of Teaching and learning, to raise student awareness of the event and enhance the undergraduate experience at the festival. We also aim to partner with multiple student organizations on campus that represent different ideological and political commitments, including (but not limited to) College Democrats at UCI, College Republicans at UCI, Conservative Student Union, The Feminist Illuminati of UC Irvine, Speech and Debate Club, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlan – MEChA, Health and Justice Advocates at UCI, Students Supporting Israel at UCI, and Students for Justice in Palestine. By actively partnering with and seeking the support of these student organizations, we hope that the festival will bring together the diversity of viewpoints represented on the UCI campus in order to foster civil disagreement and cross-group empathy, temper extremism, and build a greater sense of community at UCI.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”15″ icon=””]Relativism and Skepticism MOOC[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]

The aim of this project is to develop a MOOC (= Massive Open Online Course) that examines the core intellectual issues that lie behind some recent worrying trends in public life. We have in mind here such developments as the growth in conspiracy theories and fake news, the denial of climate change (and the rejection of the authority of scientific expertise that goes with it), the toxic and personal nature of political debate, and so on. We believe that at the root of these challenges are core epistemological issues. What is the status of relativism: to what extent is the truth ‘objective’, as opposed to being relative to certain ‘subjective’ or contingent factors, such as social structure? And what is the proper scope of scepticism: when is it virtuous, and when does it constitute a vice? The MOOC will bring together an interdisciplinary team of academics from across UCI to engage with these ideas in an accessible manner. The team will be led by someone who has a distinguished track-record of creating MOOCs and other online initiatives. The MOOC will serve to showcase the distinctive kind of interdisciplinary research that UCI does on these topics to a worldwide audience. Moreover, the aim is to integrate this MOOC into our UG curriculum (with a view to integrating it into curricula more widely, both within UC and beyond), as a constituent part of courses across the board, and in this way help to enable an important ‘hybrid’ element to our UG teaching. In doing so it will substantially improve the level of critical inquiry in our general education courses.

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The goal of the project is to create a MOOC on the topic of ‘Relativism and Skepticism’. The project lead has a lot of experience of creating courses of this kind, and the two core academics on this project are world-leading experts on the topics of skepticism and relativism. In addition, we plan to do short interviews with prominent academics on campus about the questions that concern us, and which can then be incorporated into the MOOC. For example, we will ask our Chancellor, Prof Howard Gilman, to film a short interview, given his prominent work on free speech in a University setting. The idea is to create a MOOC that is both educational in terms of the intellectual content but also has a documentary flavour. The first part of the MOOC will be lead by Prof X and will explore the topic of relativism. What does it mean to advance a relativist account of truth? Is such a view even coherent? What is the relationship between relativism and being tolerant of other peoples’ point of view? And how does relativism relate to issues in contemporary public life, such as ‘fake news’? The second part of the MOOC will be led by Y. The focus here will be on skepticism. Clearly, there can be something admirable about being sceptical, at least where this is contrasted with being gullible. We will examine the intellectual impetus behind this idea, including from an historical perspective, and also look especially at how skepticism can be misapplied, such as in terms of ‘skepticism’ about climate change.

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MOOCs are expensive to create, and hence we are requesting the full amount of $20K. Indeed, we expect the total project to substantially exceed this sum, but we are already in the process of securing other sources of funding to make up the shortfall. In particular, we have a joint undertaking from the Division of Undergraduate Education and the Division of Continuing Education to match-fund the project with $20K of funding of their own, should we secure the full sum from this scheme. The Center for Instructional Design has also suggested some additional funding schemes that we might apply to. The estimates below are based on personal experience of creating MOOCs and from speaking to people at UCI who have created MOOCs. In particular, it is important to note that one of the features of this MOOC that makes it distinctive⎯i.e., the interviews with faculty across campus⎯also significantly adds to the cost, as this kind of filming is much more demanding than green-screen filming in a studio. We have included research allowances for Professor X and Y, as we understand this is a standard feature of UCI MOOCs. We have also costed for some assistant support, given the onerous nature of the project.

Budget Breakdown
Filming (equipment and operator), 100 hrs @ $150 per hr=$15000
Editing, 200 hrs @ $100 per hr=$20000
Assistant Support, 200 hrs @ $30 per hr=$6000
Advertising=$4000
Research Allowances for Core Applicants=$10000
Animation=$10000
Total=$65000

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This project would be very high-profile. The project team is led by someone with a strong track record of creating MOOCs that have an international profile, and so we can be confident that this MOOC would also fit the bill, particularly since the issues that it covers are so topical. The MOOC would be heralded on social media, and widely publicised. It would be integrated into a variety of introductory courses across the UCI curriculum (across a range of subject areas), with a view to integrating it much more widely in terms of the UC curriculum and beyond. Philosophy has just been given permission to launch a new research cluster in epistemology, called ‘Knowledge, Technology and Society’, with the goal of converting this into a Center before long (with Professors Y and X as, respectively, Director and Deputy Director). The MOOC and the new Center will be mutually-supporting, with each raising the profile of the other. The same goes in terms of the research outputs of the Center and the MOOC, with each raising the profile of the other. Indeed, the MOOC will specifically dovetail with the research outputs of the two core project academics. Y has been commissioned by Oxford University Press to write the book on scepticism for their high-profile Very Short Introductions series, and X is in the process of producing a co-authored book on relativism for Routledge’s ‘New Problems of Philosophy’ series.

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The project will be judged by whether it meets its objectives. Some of these objectives, such as the MOOCs impact on public debate, are hard to measure, so we have focussed instead on concrete assessment milestones.

By the end of the grant, the following will have been achieved:

(i) The MOOC should be complete and ready to be launched on a major MOOC platform (e.g., Coursera). This means that all filming, interviewing, editing and so forth will be done.
(ii) Advertising for the MOOC will also have begun in readiness for the launch.

Within a year following the launch of the MOOC, the following will have been achieved:

(i) The MOOC will have been used in a selection of undergraduate courses at UCI.
(ii) The MOOC will have been used for outreach purposes in local schools.

Within 2-3 years following the launch of the MOOC, the following will have been achieved:

(i) The MOOC will have been taken by 10s of 1000s of students worldwide, with a wide range of positive testimonials and high ratings.
(ii) The MOOC will have been used across a much wider range of UCI undergraduate courses, and in at least one (non-UCI) UC course.
(iii) The MOOC will be more widely used in outreach projects, not just locally but further afield.

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The project will confront the denial of our common humanity, and in particular the denial of science, via contemporary appeals to relativism and scepticism. It will raise the profile of the research that we produce at UCI across a range of different fields. It will lead to online teaching materials that can be employed within UG curricula, not just at UCI but in the wider UC system and beyond. These will in turn help promote the development of students’ critical thinking skills within general education courses. It will lead to outreach work within local schools, and hopefully also beyond. It will help promote the excellent work UCI has done at the vanguard of online educational initiatives. Finally, it will help consolidate a new international research strength within the Philosophy.

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We plan to use this MOOC for community outreach, and to that end will talk to local high schools about using the course in their classes. These classes will be supported by visits from X and Y, and we will also produce educational resources (e.g., handouts for each lecture). Philosophy already has a philosophy in schools program, called THINK. This is aimed at younger schoolchildren just now, but this is an excellent opportunity to enhance this successful project by extending it, via the MOOC, to older schoolchildren. Note too that this project is effectively partnered with the Division of Undergraduate Education, the Division of Continuing Education, and the Center for Instructional Design.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”16″ icon=””]Understanding and Confronting Denial of Science[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]
Opponents of fetal and embryonic stem cell research have promulgated arguments that deny scientific research. Mischaracterization of stem cell functions has extended to a proliferation of clinics offering unregulated and unproven therapies utilizing “stem cells” of doubtful provenance and unproven efficacy. This represents a denial of the importance of evidence based medical science that is critical to confront in pubic policy and education. The SCRC has a history of sponsoring lectures, discussion panels, and symposia on a wide range of ethics and policy issues, including presentations by religious scholars, journalists, bioethicists who have studied topics from eugenics to unregulated and unapproved stem cell “therapies”. These sessions have integrated faculty from a from the Schools of Medicine, Biology, Engineering, and Law. Most recently, the SCRC organized a public lecture on stem cells and science policy by Dr. Elena Cattaneo (U. Milan). The SCRC also organized a joint meeting of representatives from UCI government relations, campus counsel, public relations, and UCIPD to educate our faculty about extremist threats. Here we propose to organize two major activities. First, a program that would educate our academic community about the nature of controversies in stem cell research and evidence based science, and as well as the tactics of extremists in these areas. Second, a workshop to develop student/faculty skills in communicating with the public about stem cell research and evidence based science in the face of denialism.
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Part 1 will be a half-day mini-symposium of presentations by scholars with experience in confronting extremism and denial of science. The target audience will be students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty working in the stem cell field, but the symposium will be open to the academic community at large. Possible symposium speakers include:

Daniel Sarewitz, Arizona State U: https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2017/aug/21/stop-treating-science-denial-like-a-disease

Ted Jelen, U. Nevada: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2158244013518932

Brendan Nyhan, Dartmouth U: https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want-to-be-right

For Part 2, the mini-symposium will be followed by a workshop intended to provide communication skills in confronting deniers of science and the conduct of scientific research. Scientists need to be able to communicate the value of evidence based scientific findings and research, and to counter specious arguments and distrust of the motives of scientists. We anticipate that the workshop format will involve presentations on communications techniques and role-playing exercises, including radio/television interviews and interruptions in public presentations. Possible workshop leaders include journalists such as:

Chris Mooney (Mother Jones magazine): http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/denial-science-chris-mooney/#

David Sarewitz (above): https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science

Meredith Wadman (Nature): http://www.nature.com/news/the-truth-about-fetal-tissue-research-1.18960
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Most of the expenses will be the travel expenses and honoraria for symposium speakers and workshop facilitators. We estimate four speakers and two facilitators. Average cost for an external speaker is $2000 including airfare, lodging, and honorarium. Facilitators may be more expensive as the workload is greater and the expertise required is less available.

The SCRC will provide our conference facility for the mini-symposium and workshop. We have an auditorium, breakout rooms, a kitchen, and prep areas. No additional costs will be required for these services. The SCRC has partnered with other campus organizations such as the School of Law, the Institute for Clinical & Translational Sciences, and the Newkirk center for Science and Society for our symposia. These sources and others such as the School of Medicine, the Ayala School of Biological Sciences, UCI Health Sciences, and the office of Research may help with unanticipated costs.

Estimated budget detail:
Speakers (4) $8,000
Facilitators (2) $6,000
Video production, live streaming, food for participants $1000
Tota;: $15,000.

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The mini-symposium will be videotaped and posted on our SCRC web site. It will be made available to other individuals and campus groups who want to learn more about these issues. We will hold showings of selected talks or parts of talks and hold discussions of the issues for each new group of students who come into the SCRC to do research.

Our dissemination plan will focus on the workshops as a means to spread the knowledge and skills necessary to confront extremism. One part of the training in the workshops will focus on how to teach others the acquired skills and techniques. The workshops will be carefully evaluated to determine the best facilitators and best reviewed exercises. We will then raise funds for a series of workshops to expand the reach and impact of these experiences.

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We propose to utilize the assessment services of the Institute for Clinical & Translational Science (ICTS). The ICTS Evaluation unit, under the direction of Dr. Margaret Schneider, has extensive experience in program assessment and will allow for an arms-length evaluation. These assessments will involve participant evaluations after the workshop and symposium and follow-up contacts to determine the frequency of using these techniques and their effectiveness.

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Overall Significance” open=”no”]

The SCRC is committed to community outreach, holding frequent open house tours, lectures, seminars, and interviews. However, expanded engagement is important. CIRM has driven a sea change in stem cell research inside and outside of the state, leading to 57 stem cell research clinical trials in California, with more to come over the next two years. Plans to expand future CIRM funding for basic science, training support, and clinical stem cell research are in the pipeline, and stem cell scientists need to be equipped to engage with the public to an even greater degree. Similarly, researchers across the campus can benefit from a better capacity for communication about evidence based research. This initiative will provide an expanded toolbox for these goals.

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The SCRC will be the home of this program. The SCRC is a remarkably inter-disciplinary group, with faculty representing 22 different academic departments in six different schools of programs (Medicine, Biological Sciences, Engineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Law, and Arts.) In addition, we have well-established partnerships with several campus organizations including the ICTS (Institute for Clinical & Translational Sciences), the Center for Bioethics and Global Health Policy (School of Law), and the Newkirk Center for Science and Society, all of whom have partnered with the SCRC on programs relating to science policy. There are also many patient advocacy community groups with whom we work to advance public understanding of medical issues such as injury induced paralysis, Alzheimer’s disease and other memory problems, Huntington’s disease, diabetes, and many others. Finally, the SCRC has also worked with the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art (OCCA) on community programs, as well as with many local school districts on educational programs.

[/fusion_toggle][/fusion_accordion][/fusion_tab][fusion_tab title=”17″ icon=””]VIET STORIES: Recollections & Regenerations Exhibition[fusion_accordion type=”” boxed_mode=”” border_size=”1″ border_color=”” background_color=”” hover_color=”” divider_line=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””][fusion_toggle title=”Project Details” open=”no”]

[/fusion_toggle][fusion_toggle title=”Project Description” open=”no”]

There are 2 million Vietnamese Americans in the US, the largest population outside of Vietnam is in Orange County, and they are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the US. They comprised the largest resettlement of refugees in US history; however, they were not initially welcomed by the American public in 1975 because of the controversy of the Vietnam War. There was public anxiety about admitting foreigners and their ability to integrate into US society as well as suspicions about their racial background, political ideologies, and cultural practices. The media often portrays refugees as faceless & nameless. Our project highlights the humanity of the people behind these headlines by showing the consequences & legacies of war and what happens to refugees 40+ years after a war ends.

Our history, oral history, and art exhibit aims to change the misperceptions of Vietnamese American refugees, similar to the current Middle Eastern refugee crisis, as “helpless” victims of war, “burdens” to society, and “threats” to America. It captures the complexities and humanity of Vietnamese Americans’ lives before the war, their roles during the war, their difficult paths of escape & resettlement, and the creation of their ethnic communities in the US. By critically engaging historical scholarship on refugees and immigrants, it forges new dialogues to reshape public perceptions and understandings of refugee & immigrant communities around the country. UCI has one of the largest Vietnamese student and alumni populations in the nation and the exhibit features prominent UCI alumni.

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First, we are creating an exhibit at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda, CA (Feb 17-May 28, 2018) that chronicles the history & diversity of the Vietnamese American community. The exhibit includes 11 narrative history panels, 12 oral history panels & over 100 original artifacts. The photographs, documents, ephemera & oral histories are from the UCI Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History Project collection & the UCI Libraries Orange County & Southeast Asian Archive Center & features UCI alumni. It will include 36 original artworks by 18 Vietnamese American artists that reflect themes of war, trauma, violence, displacement, survival & healing.

We are organizing 4 events that are free & open to the public: Media Day; Opening Day with speakers, film screening of Journey From the Fall with a panel & Art+Food event featuring artists in the exhibit & culinary entrepreneurs. Free educational group tours will be provided to K-12 & college students. We will create short videos of visitors reactions for posting on social media & our website.

Second, we will redesign a traveling version of the exhibition with 16 pop-up banners (47” x 87”), which will be durable for traveling, shipping & use in non-secured public spaces. This is in collaboration with the Heritage Museum of Orange County based in Santa Ana where the banners & artifacts will be displayed (June 1-July 31, 2018) & we will organize 1 panel with speakers. The interactive museum serves the public & K-6 students. The portable version of the exhibit can travel to sites across the country.

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Consultant Co-Curator 5,000
Graphic/Exhibition Designer 3,000
Events/Outreach Coordinator 2,000
Photographer/Videographer 1,000
Social Media/Web Specialist 2,000
Printing 10,000
Special Events/Receptions 6,000
Panels/Speakers (honorarium, travel) 6,000

Total: 35,000

Although Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History Project is housed in the UCI School of Humanities, it is funded solely by private donations & grants. We received funds from UCI Illuminations: Chancellor’s Arts & Culture Initiative ($3,000) for programs & UC Humanities Research Institute ($5,000) for design & printing. The Heritage Museum will donate $4,000 for banners. We need additional funds to greatly enhance the quality & expand the outreach of the exhibits & programs.

Given the sensitivity of the content, in addition to the consultant co-curator, we are hiring a graphic/exhibition designer who is bilingual in Vietnamese/English to design the exhibit layout, banners, panels, logo, & PR materials. The photographer/videographer will create short videos of the exhibit for publicity & of visitors reactions that will be posted on social media & our website. We plan to hire UCI undergrad/grad students or UCI alumni to fill positions to assist with the outreach, upload content to our website & social media, coordinate publicity & organize events. Since we are a guest exhibit, the Nixon Library & Museum, as part of the National Archives, cannot provide honorarium or travel expenses for speakers, fund food/beverage for receptions or large printing, or cover our special staffing needs.

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Based on our previous Vietnamese Focus: Generations of Stories exhibit at OC Parks Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana & UCI Student Center Gallery, we realized how impactful exhibits are in reaching new audiences & disseminating research. Our target audience is the general public, which includes K-12 & college students, as well as artists, veterans, educators & the media. The issues addressed in the exhibit are particularly relevant at a time when the world is wrestling with the plight of Middle Eastern refugees & the backlash against documented & undocumented immigrants.

For our previous exhibits, we had co-sponsors from multiple units at UCI & partnered with regional museums, as well as mainstream, Asian American, and Vietnamese American non-profit arts, business, civil rights, cultural, medical & social service organizations (25 total) to increase attendees. We plan to work with them again to bring in audiences to our exhibits & events. http://sites.uci.edu/vaohp/events-vietnamesefocus/

We held tours for UCI classes and for high school students representing every district in the county. Educators from local community, UC, CSU & private schools also incorporated the exhibit into their curriculum.

The Nixon Museum has a regular audience base and provides free educational tours to 10,000 students annually. In Nov 2016, they had about 10,000 visitors & with their recent $15 million renovation, the Nixon Museum anticipates greater visitation numbers in 2018, increasing the visibility of our exhibit. The Heritage Museum hosts 16,000-18,000 students on tours yearly.

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The objective of UCI Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History Project is to preserve the oral histories of Vietnamese 30 years & older in Southern California, the largest population outside of Vietnam & to share it with the world. Founded in 2011, Viet Stories has collected over 450 oral history interviews with nearly 200 available online through the UCI Libraries website, which are fully transcribed (& translated if needed) with an audio and/or video recording, photographs, documents & ephemera. According to UCI Library data, our website receives 60,000 hits per month. During the months of our previous exhibits, we received over 300,000 hits per month. http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1614

Museums keep track of their visitors, so we can monitor how many people will see the exhibit daily/monthly. We can record reactions to the exhibit through hashtags in social media & shared postings on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter. Since a QR link to our website is included on all panels, museum visitors will be directed to our UCI website & discover our resources. We can keep track of educators who take their students on the arranged educational tours. Educators have used our photo history book, Vietnamese in Orange County (Arcadia Press, 2015), that includes some info in the exhibit in their curriculum. Our previous exhibit was featured on the front page of the Orange County Register twice & covered by the Los Angeles Times & NPR as well as Vietnamese language media, so we can assess impact and outreach from the media coverage.

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This project contributes to a deeper knowledge of the diversity of America’s transforming population & history. Education is an important tool to combat extremism & promote inclusion. Many misperceptions persist about the burdens or contributions “foreigners” or immigrants have on a society. America’s direct involvement in the decade long Vietnam War deeply divided the US & led to fears about Vietnamese refugees. Like other unwelcomed newcomers, they were barred entry to the US, faced racial violence & their homes, businesses & religious sites were vandalized. These refugees who were forced from their homeland have had their histories marginalized, distorted, or erased. The objective of this exhibit is to expand knowledge, create pedagogical opportunities & foster critical dialogues.

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Dr. X & Y are responsible for creating the history & oral history panels/banners; printing of large panels/banners; finding, collecting & curating the artifacts; writing all the text & captions; & selecting the artwork. They will create the curriculum for educational tours; train docents; direct social media & website uploads; generate publicity; & conduct interviews with the media. They will plan & organize all the events/panels/receptions & disseminate publicity for the exhibit and events. They will coordinate & oversee all the staff working on the exhibit.

The Nixon Museum, one of 14 Presidential Libraries operated by the National Archives & Records Administration, will host the exhibit & provide construction exhibit space, process paperwork for loans of artwork, hang artwork & panels, display artifacts, maintain security & guide educational tours. They will provide the venue for 4 events: Media Day (Feb 20), Opening Day Reception (Feb 24), Film Screening (March 22) & Art + Food (May 19).

The Heritage Museum of Orange County will provide gallery space, security of facility, organize educational tours with K-6 graders & generate publicity for exhibit. We will organize one speaking panel for their largest community outreach event on July 15, 2018.

All partners will outreach to their diverse constituents, including elementary & secondary schools, colleges, community organizations, media & the general public to attend the exhibit and free events. If the exhibit travels to additional sites, the museums will transfer the exhibit materials as needed.

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Everyone eats. Every culture expresses its vision of humanity, its relation to place and time, and its ordering of the cosmos through the foods its people grow, prepare, consume, and share. By eating meals from around the world in a welcoming environment, students can explore other outlooks, histories and beliefs while also affirming what we share as human beings who need sustenance, shelter, and sociability in order to survive and flourish.

This series of meals at the ARC Kitchen is modeled on the Conversation Kitchen Series. Students enrolled in Professor Yong Chen’s “What To Eat” course (History F15; Fall 2018) will get first access to these specially themed and curated meals. Each evening will feature one of UCI’s new hires in the area of global religions, including X (Persian and Jewish Studies) and new hires in Jain Studies, Sikh Studies, and Buddhist Studies. The theme of these short presentations will be the virtues cultivated in the religious tradition at hand, with an emphasis on virtues that promote an idea of common humanity through principles of tolerance, respect, hospitality, stewardship, justice, and care for the other. The word “excellence” in the phrase “inclusive excellence” stems from the Greek “arete,” translated as excellence or virtue. Students will also have an opportunity to participate in food preparation the day before each event. This series aims to build understanding of the role that virtues play across cultures by celebrating the virtues exercised in the preparation and sharing of food and cultivated by different faith traditions.

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3-4 themed meals will be designed in consultation with Chef Jessica Van Roo to coordinate with the GE History course “What To Eat’ and to showcase new endowed chairs in Jain Studies, Sikh Studies, Buddhist Studies, and Jewish Studies. Each menu will be offered twice to accommodate groups of 70 students in the ARC test kitchen. We will also invite local chefs and food critics to participate in the course and themed kitchen events.

The day before each event, groups of students will be invited to participate in food prep at the ARC Test Kitchen, under the training and supervision of Chef Van Roo. Students in “What To Eat” and in the current Conversation Kitchen programs have requested more hands-on experience with cooking.

At the event itself, guest experts on world religion, drawn from UCI faculty, will provide commentary on the virtues of inclusion articulated in their traditions. They will also connect those virtues to food practices, including etiquette, hospitality, seasonal foods, feasts and fasts, and dietary laws.

At each table will be stacks of Conversation Kitchen postcards with questions for sharing and discussion. These questions ask participants to share food memories, to reflect on food preparation in their households, and to articulate the values implicit in the making and serving of food.

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Meals in the ARC Test Kitchen for 150 students (Conversation Kitchen): 3 x $6K = $18K

Guest speakers: $2K for honoraria and mileage for local chefs or food critics such as Roy Choi (Kogi Truck) ) and Gustavo Arellano (Taco USA) to contribute commentary

$20K total

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Events will be open to students in the “What To Eat” GE course. Additional spots will be offered to Conversation Kitchen and Illuminations students, broadening the impact of the program. We anticipate running each themed meal twice, with seats for 160 students total for each theme.

Illuminations currently serves around 10,000 ticket holders a year. The Conversation Kitchen program (run by Campus Climate Council with co-sponsorship and cross-publicizing by Illuminations) is immensely popular, and we anticipate no difficulty in filling the room for each event.

“What To Eat” (History 15) explores how immigration has transformed America’s gastronomy as well as the culinary traditions of the immigrants. The course shows how such gastronomical transformation is tied, ultimately, to profound social changes. The virtues of eating together include the opportunity to confront and combat various extreme ideologies, such as racism and exclusion, by understanding the food practices of others and affirming what we share as human beings. The course fulfills G III or IV and VII and is capped at and enrolls 130 students.

The UCI speakers are holders of endowed chairs or affiliated with endowed programs. We will invite key members of the community, including donors to the chairs and programs, as guests to these special evenings, with the hope of raising funds to continue the program in the future. In the future, we can engage faculty from other programs, such as Armenian Studies and the Global Middle East. We also anticipate units on sustainable food.

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We will distribute evaluations after each program, following the Conversation Kitchen model. We will ask participants to reflect on the quality of the programming and share their own take-aways from each event. Table postcards can also be used as assessment and feedback instruments. Students enrolled in “What To Eat” will provide additional rich feedback as part of their class work.

Future Development: in piloting this program, we will lay the groundwork for developing a food studies program at UCI and for further collaborations with community organizations in Orange County. Food studies is part of our continued effort to use food as a way to promote cultural awareness, develop a culture of inclusive excellences at UCI, and confront extremism.

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This program builds on the success of Conversation Kitchen, which will have served over 640 meals at the ARC this year, and related programs, such as “Cooking with the Professor” (developed by Professor Yong Chen), by connecting the format to a GE course and developing the ethical significance of these programs through the elaboration of a global virtues discourse. Students will develop new bonds with each other by cooking and eating together. They will also learn about global virtue traditions through commensal study with UCI researchers on world religions. We believe this program will attract local and national interest as an innovative approach to food studies, experiential learning, and inclusive excellence (with “exellence” understood in its original Greek sense, as arete or virtue).

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Illuminations: The Chancellor’s Arts and Culture Initiative will provide oversight and coordination for the program. Many of our programs support multi-cultural exchange.

Conversation Kitchen, sponsored by the Campus Climate Council with cooperation from Illuminations, is a successful program using experiential learning (food studies) to encourage multi-cultural understanding.

The Program in Religious Studies promotes the understanding of global religions through humanistic and social-scientific methods. Director Susan B. Klein is a faculty adviser to Conversation Kitchen and will be a liaison between Global Virtues,Religious Studies, and East Asian Languages and Literatures.

The Department of History is the host department for the GE course “What To Eat.”

The Humanities Commons organizes research activities and public engagement for the School of Humanities. The Commons will cross-publicize events involving humanities faculty and work with Humanities Advancements and Communications to build the program’s visibility.

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