PBS documentary examines UVa’s Sorensen Institute

The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia will be the focus of a new public television documentary set to air at the end of May.
The documentary, “Across the Aisle: Returning Trust, Civility and Respect to Politics,” follows civic leaders enrolled in the institute’s political leader training program.
Over the years, numerous Sorensen graduates have been elected to public office. Sixteen alumni currently serve in the Virginia General Assembly.
In the documentary, the institute is held up as a national model for returning civility to America’s increasingly bitter political landscape.
The film focuses on seven of the 35 students in the Sorensen Institute’s class of 2007. The cameras tag along as the students debate and discuss politics with ideological opponents, tour state government facilities and confront their political biases.
Over the course of the 90-minute film, one of the Democratic subjects opts to run for a seat on her local school board in a heavily Republican district.
The documentary also focuses on how several of the subjects with entrenched political beliefs begin to see issues from a different perspective after they spend time with people from the other end of the political spectrum.
WHTJ, Charlottesville’s local PBS member station, produced the documentary.
The idea for the film was hatched while WHTJ station manager D.J. Crotteau was sitting on the porch of local philanthropist Frederic W. Scott Jr.’s house.
“We were talking about civility and how the word ‘civil’ used to mean both politeness and government,” Crotteau said. “Now it’s funny to think that polite and government could be a synonym.”
Scott suggested that WHTJ consider the Sorensen Institute as a documentary subject. Eventually, Scott became the primary backer of the project.
The documentary was unveiled Thursday evening at UVa’s Special Collections Library. At the event, former Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs, addressed the crowd.
“Where do Americans learn to be civil these days? Not on cable news, not during national elections that turn on scandal and misinformation. It is difficult to find the lesson in our school curricula,” Baliles said.
“Just as Tip O’Neill used to say that ‘all politics is local,’ so, too, is civility. Getting along is how we get things done. We are polite to each other at home, at work and in the marketplace. Yet, politics, even the local variety, is so cutthroat, you wonder if society is off course.”
Baliles said local institutions like Sorensen and WHTJ are making strides in returning civility and respect to politics.
“Across the Aisle” will be shown at 8 p.m. May 28 and at 10 p.m. June 4. WHTJ can be seen on channel 41, cable channel 200 and digital channel 41.2.