CATLST

Workshops, Consultations, and Book Clubs


Book Clubs


Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide

The book cover for "Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide".

Author: Cass R. Sunstein
Co-Facilitators: Veronica Sorya-Martinez, Rimi Zakaria
Format: Webex
Dates: Thursdays 9/18, 9/25, 10/2, 10/9
Times: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
 

Free speech is indispensable on college campuses: allowing varied views and frank exchanges of opinion is a core component of the educational enterprise and the pursuit of truth. But free speech does not mean a free-for-all. The First Amendment prohibits “abridging the freedom of speech,” yet laws against perjury or bribery, for example, are still constitutional. In the same way, valuing freedom of speech does not stop a university from regulating speech when doing so is necessary for its educational mission. So where is the dividing line? How can we distinguish reasonable restrictions from impermissible infringement?

In this pragmatic, no-nonsense explainer, Cass Sunstein takes us through a wide range of scenarios involving students, professors, and administrators. He discusses why it’s consistent with the First Amendment to punish students who shout down a speaker, but not those who chant offensive slogans; why a professor cannot be fired for writing a politically charged op-ed, yet a university might legitimately consider an applicant’s political views when deciding whether to hire her. He explains why private universities are not legally bound by the First Amendment yet should, in most cases, look to follow it. And he addresses the thorny question of whether a university should officially take sides on public issues or deliberately keep the institution outside the fray.


A Pedagogy of Kindness

The book cover for "A Pedagogy of Kindness".

Author: Catherine J. Denial
Co-Facilitators: Heather Niemeier, Tia Schultz
Format: Hybrid (UC 69)
Dates: Thursdays 9/18, 10/2, 10/16, 10/30
Times: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
 

Academia is not, by and large, a kind place. Individualism and competition are what count. But without kindness at its core, Catherine Denial suggests, higher education fails students and instructors—and its mission—in critical ways.

Part manifesto, part teaching memoir, part how-to guide, A Pedagogy of Kindness urges higher education to get aggressive about instituting kindness, which Denial distinguishes from niceness. Having suffered beneath the weight of just “getting along,” instructors need to shift every part of what they do to prioritizing care and compassion—for students as well as for themselves.

A Pedagogy of Kindness articulates a fresh vision for teaching, one that focuses on ensuring justice, believing people, and believing in people. Offering evidence-based insights and drawing from her own rich experiences as a professor, Denial offers practical tips for reshaping syllabi, assessing student performance, and creating trust and belonging in the classroom. Her suggestions for concrete, scalable actions  outline nothing less than a transformational discipline—one in which, together, we create bright new spaces, rooted in compassion, in which all engaged in teaching and learning might thrive.


The Anxious Generation

The book cover for "The Anxious Generation".

Author: Jonathan Haidt
Facilitator: Amy Barth
Format: In-person (UC 261)
Dates: Mondays 10/20, 10/27, 11/3, 11/10, 11/17
Times: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
 

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.


There are currently no book clubs created for Spring 2026. Please check back here at a later time for updates.