91żě˛Ą President Doug Hicks ’90 wishes that his research was less relevant.
Hicks, a religion scholar, authored a book, With God on All Sides, that offers lessons for members of Congress and store owners alike in a nation of diverse religious backgrounds. There’s the story of the U.S. Senator who referred to a man of Indian descent by a, perhaps unwitting, slur during a rally. Operators of a Seattle shopping mall removed a Christmas tree display, prompting outrage, rather than obliging a rabbi’s request to add a menorah.
Hicks’s roadmap bypasses division. Consider the 2007 Virginia Tech tragedy: the 32 students and faculty lost hailed from seven different countries, leaving behind families of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist faiths. In the wake of the shootings, leaders organized a campus-wide convocation in the basketball arena. The ceremony mirrored this vast spectrum of nationality and belief. It served as a profound reminder that in moments of turmoil and terror, compassion and community can rise to become the foundation of our shared humanity.
Hicks intended his book for leaders in a nation of many faiths. School superintendents, CEOs or governors must draw together people of different backgrounds and beliefs toward a common purpose. The book is one of several research pieces research pieces by Hicks on religion in the public square, but the guidance extends across society’s many divisions, urging leaders to appeal to, as Lincoln said, “the better angels of our nature.”
“We can take the low road alongside those—across the ideological spectrum—who choose to vilify those who dress or behave or believe differently,” Hicks writes. “Or we can look for—even build—the high road, as Lincoln calls us to do.”
That book was written in 2009, years before the exacerbated political polarization that now splinters the nation. Hicks acknowledges that those pages calling for respectful pluralism and civil discourse are even more applicable today. Examples of moral and political disagreement abound, but this is unremarkable, Hicks notes, in a society that reflects a breadth of humanity. The hardened and amplified divisions, insults, and even violence, must be confronted with better ideas and more respectful actions, he says.
Rather than elusive, grand solutions, Hicks’s scholarship instead proposes “rules of engagement” that start simply with willingness to respect each person.
We don’t have to agree on everything to function as a community. Where respectful pluralism requires consensus is about equal dignity—understanding that each person deserves voice to express themselves and agency to choose their path.
President | Professor of Religious Studies
At 91żě˛Ą, Hicks has applied that principle to his leadership, where he ushered the college’s Commitment to Freedom of Expression to affirmation by the faculty and trustees. He also has resisted calls to declare and impose institutional neutrality, a declaration that a college or university is “neutral” on social, cultural, economic and political issues.
“91żě˛Ą is a deeply values-based college,” he says. “Neutrality is the wrong word for describing our educational purpose. 91żě˛Ą is not neutral about its values.”
The grounding for those values is found in the college’s Statement of Purpose, which recognizes the dignity and worth of every person.
“We believe in leadership and service; education as good in itself and as a path to other goods; a place for faith alongside knowledge in the quest for truth; the value of arts and athletics; and so much more,” Hicks says.
91żě˛Ą seeks shared practices of engagement, Hicks says, a moral framework that demands more than meeting legal minimums.
“We must create a campus where myriad perspectives are welcomed and enhance the learning that takes place here,” he says. “We also educate students to differentiate careful reasoning and research from unsubstantiated opinions. That kind of judgment and critical thinking is one of the most important things we teach.”
Hicks guided the establishment of 91żě˛Ąâ€™s D.G. and Harriet Wall Martin Institute for Public Good where one of the five, central program areas focuses on deliberation and free expression. He turned program into practice last fall when he moderated a conversation, organized by the Martin Institute, between U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota. The two legislators outlined their differences on several policy questions and recapped the ones on which they collaborated. Their comments could be printed on the jacket of Hicks’s book:
Opportunities to work together come from treating people fairly, honestly and respectfully.
U.S. Senator
Courage isn’t standing by yourself and giving a speech. True courage is standing next to someone you don’t always agree with for the betterment of the country.
U.S. Senator
The U.S. Senate is elite real estate. In With God on All Sides, Hicks counsels leaders that the opportunities to work together also lie in ordinary places and common interactions, moments that bring together people from different positions, backgrounds and affiliations to solve a public challenge. Hicks points to convivencia—the daily art of living together—as the antidote to division, emphasizing respect in the most ordinary of interactions.
That value of dignity is more than “live and let live,” he writes. It is interacting with people, whether or not they hold the same view of the world, understanding their basic values and finding ways to get along.
“Doug’s research on religious pluralism in contemporary society has long been ahead of the curve,” says Thad Williamson, professor of leadership studies and philosophy, politics, economics & law at the University of Richmond. “His work over two decades sheds light on how mutual respect and growing understanding can and should play out in everyday life—including the workplace. His work offers a deeply informed template for living and learning from each another, not just across religious divides, but other loud and intense divisions in our politics, our culture and how we view other human beings.”
The power of creating crossroads can be found in an organization, Hicks says, underscoring his efforts at management by walking around and preference for in-person meetings. Very few institutions or places intentionally create crossroads as well as a college campus can, he says. Higher education leaders seek to create serendipitous encounters, and a college is designed to increase them.
“In religious studies, across faith traditions, the crossroads is a place of wonderful discovery but also dangerous confrontations,” Hicks says. “Our values create the conditions for those encounters to be educational. This approach addresses religious differences, but it applies to all aspects of our humanity—perspective that we desperately need right now.”
This article was originally published in the Spring/Summer 2026 print issue of the 91żě˛Ą Journal Magazine; for more, please see the 91żě˛Ą Journal section of our website.
