Civility is a grave concern for many of us who are active members in our communities. ..In January 2002, Public Agenda conducted a national telephone survey for CNN to learn more about America's manners. Seventy-nine percent believe that lack of respect and courtesy in American society is a serious problem (http://cnn.usnews). Check out P.J. Forni's book, Choosing Cvility, http://www.jhu.edu/civility/

Below are areas for particular consideration:

Links to organizations who are addressing civility problems:

The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution
Julie Nenon, Viable Ways for Changing Violence at the Community Level. http://www.trinstitute.org/ojpcr/p3_2nenon.htm. Issue 3.2, June 2000.

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation
1801 Broadway, Suite 250, Denver, CO 80202; http://www.actsofkindness.org

Human Kindness Foundation, PO Box 61619, Durham, NC 27715, http://www.humankindness.org

I like many of the activities from David and Roger Johnson’s work on cooperative learning, http://www.acrnet.org/about/crejohnson.htm. Both are from the University of Minnesota. I think that David is in psychology and Roger in communication.

Here are some other helpful sites:
·  http://www.foundationcoalition.org/home/keycomponents/teams/conflict1f.html
·         http://www.college.cengage.com/education/pbl/tc/coop.html
·         http://salsa.net/peace/teach/teachers.html

Gangs are a great concern to many. A recent FBI report concluded MS-13 has about 2,000 members in Northern Virginia.

• Learn what the Fairfax County Police Department is doing to address this issue, http://www.co.fairfax.va.us/ps/police/police31.htm
• Arlington County Police Department has a similar website with good information, http://www.co.arlington.va.us
• Learn about Virginia's Attorney General Jerry Kilgore says about gang behavior in Virginia, http://www.oag.state.va.us

Netiquette is the term that describes civil uses of the Internet and communication on the World Wide Web. It is considered bad form

• To flame someone: To respond to someone with disrespectful and inflammatory language;
• To use all caps when sending an electronic message. This is akin to shouting at them;

  For more about rules of netiquette, go to Delaware Tech's article from Sally Hambridge of the Intel Corporation: http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html

You might be interested in reading more about civility:

• Robert Putnam's book, Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community, (Simon & Schuster, 1999).
• P.M. Forni's book, Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct, (St. Martins Press, 2002).
• Ronald Arnett and Pat Arneson's, Dialogic Civility in a Cynical Age, (SUNY, 1999).