FIRE & NSSE: What we know about engagement and speech on campus

Session Abstract: 1. Two pillars of the American civic faith of liberal democracy are the belief that we engage in a marketplace of ideas where the mettle of ideas are decided through argumentation, disagreement, and ultimately resolution, and that the institution of higher education can rely on its history of producing capable individual for the ranks of leaders, management, and entrepreneurs of tomorrow, in part through exposure to difficult ideas and different people. Yet the past decade has yielded a number of illiberal shoutdowns, riots, an ddisinvitations along with a widening gap in the political views of college graduates and the general American public. Drawing on data from FIRE and NSSE, this analysis examines the relationship between select facets of student engagement and perceptions of the (free) speech environment on campus.

Keywords: Survey research, free speech, National Survey of Student Engagement, FIRE Rankings