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Civility in Decline? The View from the American College Campus

Posted by on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 in Civility: And Justice for Whom?, Events.

Dr. P.M. Forni, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, co-founded the Johns Hopkins Civility Project in 1997. An aggregation of academic and community outreach activities, the JHCP aimed at assessing the significance of civility, manners and politeness in contemporary society. The JHCP has been reconstituted as The Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins, which Dr. Forni now directs.

The traditional rules of manners, civility and politeness are a time-proven, very effective code of relational skills. A cornerstone Dr. Forni’s talks is that being civil is both the decent thing to do and the expedient one. Civility and good manners are areas of human behavior where altruism and self-interest merge. Social skills are a precious asset: They allow us to enjoy harmonious social interactions as they strengthen social bonds. Strong social bonds are necessary for the building and maintenance of social support and also crucial to success at work. Building upon the notion that life is an experience in relating and connecting, my talks aim at improving the quality of both personal and professional lives.

Free and Open to the Public.

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