UC Berkeley’s Openness to Opposing Views course expands to community colleges

Last summer, UC Berkeley launched a course that teaches people how to better engage with opposing viewpoints. By fall, interest was so intense that campus leaders opened it up to faculty, staff and alumni. 

Now, Berkeley is expanding the course yet again.

Beginning this summer, students at California’s community colleges will be able to enroll in the free, asynchronous online course, Openness to Opposing Views. Up to 150 students and 10 faculty will have access during a pilot phase, according to an agreement campus leaders signed this month, with expanded access possible in the future.

“At Berkeley, we believe in the constructive collision of ideas — it’s at the heart of our mission, it’s what makes great universities engines of innovation and it’s critical to shaping graduates who can navigate and thrive among differences of opinion,” said Chancellor Rich Lyons. “We’re proud to bring that spirit to California’s community colleges, giving their students access to a signature Berkeley course featuring some of the brightest minds at our institution.”

The online course is part of the Berkeley Changemaker program and features lectures and conversations with a Nobel laureate, the provost and 20-plus scholars from 14 departments. Presenters discuss their research and share times when they’ve encountered criticism in their work or navigated disagreement in their lives. 

Lessons equip students to handle similarly uncomfortable situations in their own lives, especially during increasingly polarized times.

The idea to expand the course stemmed from a conversation last fall between Lyons and Sonya Christian, the chancellor of California Community Colleges. Both leaders said the broader goal is to increase the number of community college students who successfully transfer to Berkeley. One in three Berkeley undergraduates is a transfer student — 95% of them from California’s community colleges, reflecting Berkeley’s commitment to expanding access to a world-class public education.

Christian said California Community Colleges is proud to partner with Berkeley on the initiative. She said it would help prepare students for their careers and to transfer as well as for citizenship in a diverse democracy and leadership in a complex world. 

“The ability to engage across differences with curiosity, confidence and respect is an essential skill for this generation,” Christian said. “We are especially excited that this collaboration creates another bridge between our colleges and Berkeley, strengthening pathways for students to transfer, thrive and lead. When great public institutions work together, California students win.”

Berkeley students remain able to enroll in a one-credit version; faculty and staff can sign up for a no-credit option on the UC Learning Center. Approximately 1,200 Berkeley students have completed the course for credit; more than 5,300 people in total have registered for the course in the approximately nine months that it’s been offered.

Laura Hassner, Berkeley’s executive director of innovation and entrepreneurship, codesigned the course. She said recent survey results show a 13-point increase in students’ willingness to have conversations with people who hold opposing views after they complete the course. They’re also less frustrated when they do so. 

“At a time when discourse is so polarized, it feels imperative for our top public university to share this course widely,” she said. “We are thrilled to begin here with our community colleges.”