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When Darci Rochkind ’28—a government and Middle Eastern studies major from Bethesda, Md., and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors—was applying to colleges in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, ���㽶��Ƶ’s approach to fostering dialogue made the school her top choice.

“I have family in Israel, and Oct. 7 spooked me to my core. I don’t think anything else in my life has been as profound,” Rochkind says. 

As campuses around the U.S. became flashpoints of protest, Rochkind saw how ���㽶��Ƶ faculty from the Middle Eastern Studies and Jewish Studies programs were coming together to educate the community on the issues—a collaboration that drew national attention—and how a new initiative called was supporting open discourse across all kinds of differences. 

Compared to other schools she visited, “The ���㽶��Ƶ community seemed very tight, and the temperature was just way dialed down,” she says. “It just made sense.”

Cultivating intellectual diversity

As one of signature priorities, ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues launched in January 2024 with to strengthen “a culture in which community members engage in respectful discussion across differences and feel comfortable having their views challenged.” And in its second full academic year, the initiative—which includes events with speakers who model dialogue, skill-building workshops, and broad-ranging partnerships across campus and beyond—is having an impact. 

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Darci Rochkind ’28 says she was drawn to ���㽶��Ƶ because of its approach to fostering dialogue. A recent survey of ���㽶��Ƶ students found that over 90% “believe that engaging with challenging perspectives is essential to their education.”  (Photo by Katie Lenhart)

Nearly 15,000 people attended ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues-sponsored events during its first academic year. All first-year students—1,200 of them—received training in dialogue skills through online modules and structured in-person conversations. Undergraduates can take a course on facilitating dialogue to fulfill a wellness credit. More than 230 faculty and staff members have also received training in how to facilitate difficult conversations.

A recent survey of ���㽶��Ƶ students conducted by Associate Professor of Government found that “an overwhelming 85% of ���㽶��Ƶ students express confidence in their ability to engage respectfully with differing viewpoints,” and that over 90% “believe that engaging with challenging perspectives is essential to their education.”

The survey responses show an “extraordinary campuswide consensus on the value of intellectual diversity,” Westwood wrote in the survey’s executive summary. “Students across all class years demonstrate consistent commitment to viewpoint diversity, reinforcing that these values are deeply embedded in ���㽶��Ƶ’s culture from day one. We’re not recruiting students who think alike—we’re recruiting students who like to think.”

The effort to encourage a culture of dialogue on campus is a long-term project, says , executive director of ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues. 

“For me it’s not about providing just one kind of dialogue training—it’s about providing lots of different opportunities that students can opt into,” Clemens says.

One Dialogues program that is making a difference is , a partnership with the nonprofit organization StoryCorps that facilitates meaningful, one-on-one conversations among individuals from different backgrounds, generations, or political perspectives. In its first year, 124 students participated, and the vast majority “reported feeling like they and their partner opened up to each other in a meaningful way,” according to the ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues .

Talia Proshan ’28, a cognitive science major from New York City, was drawn to the idea of engaging in a conversation with someone with very different life experiences. Through One Small Step, she was paired, across cultural and generational experiences, with Haishan Li, a guest experience manager at the Class of 1953 Commons who immigrated from China.

“I had seen Haishan every day at FoCo, probably, but we had never met. Now when I see her, we always give each other a hug and we chat for a few minutes. I never would have had that if I hadn’t done One Small Step,” Proshan says.

During the structured conversation, Proshan says, “I learned about her relationship with her daughter and how her life is different here in America from where she grew up. We talked about our childhoods. I remember feeling like I was being exposed to someone that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to really meet otherwise.”

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Talia Proshan ’28, a cognitive science major from New York City, has become friends with Haishan Li—a ���㽶��Ƶ Dining employee who immigrated from China—through a ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues/One Small Step conversation. (Photo by Katie Lenhart)

The experience “showed me that everyone has something to say, and if you sit down with pretty much anyone in the right circumstances, you can connect,” she says. 

Empowering student leaders

Key to the ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues training and support is the role students themselves play.

“The takeaway we’re bringing into year two of Dialogues: We need to have students in the lead,” Clemens says. “We want to be truly empowering our student leaders to have these conversations and providing them the skills to do that. That is paramount to the long-term success of the initiative.”

To that end, Dialogues aims to go to where students are already leaders—such as the Undergraduate Advisor program, Greek houses, athletics teams, and fellowship programs in the and the —to provide support with training and other programming around challenging conversations.

An example of how ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues is empowering student leadership is its partnership with the —a nonpartisan, student-run organization that provides a vital forum for respectful political dialogue. Over the past year, Dialogues has helped DPU facilitate a series of public debates with prominent guest experts on issues such as how to prevent gun violence; abortion rights; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the role of the press in politics. 

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Mac Mahoney ’26 has become a campus leader as president of the student-run, nonpartisan ���㽶��Ƶ Political Union, which has sponsored debates on issues ranging from how to prevent gun violence to capitalism vs. democratic socialism. (Photo by Katie Lenhart)

Mac Mahoney ’26, a government major from Ludlow, Mass., has been president of DPU since his sophomore year. 

“Dialogues has been a great resource for DPU in terms of guidance on how we can be successful in bringing diverse opinions to campus while supporting our autonomy as a student-run organization,” he says. “We make the decisions, not the administration. We bring the speakers that we want to bring, that we know our peers want to hear from.”

A favorite event was last year’s debate on democratic socialism vs. capitalism, featuring scholar and former presidential candidate Cornel West and legal scholar Robert George, Mahoney says.

“I really loved our conversation—not just because of their differing views, and the fact that we were able to really press them about why they thought the other person was wrong, but because they’re best friends,” he says. “Afterward, we had a wonderful dinner, and the conversation was super wide-ranging. It was just a master class in being able to have intense disagreements over a shared meal.”

In addition to DPU events, Dialogues and the Rockefeller Center co-sponsored the 2024 Election Speaker Series, which brought political figures from across the spectrum—from former Vice President Mike Pence to legal scholar Anita Hill—to campus to speak and engage with students. Dialogues and Rocky are also co-sponsors this year of the Law and Democracy: The United States at 250 speaker series.

Mahoney—who has also served on the ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues steering committee and participated in several formal and informal Dialogues programs, including One Small Step, the , and a “Butter Down the Hatches” workshop on how to have difficult conversations over the Thanksgiving table—says he has noticed a shift on campus to embrace disagreement both in and out of the classroom. 

“I’ve noticed a huge emphasis on it in my academics. Yesterday in class my professor was talking about how his goal is to ‘teach the debate’—to teach the different arguments about a specific issue instead of presenting one lens,” he says. “That’s something that I’ve really appreciated and tried to seek out throughout my time at ���㽶��Ƶ, and I’m finding it becoming more commonplace.”

‘A mindset of optimism’

For her part, Rochkind—who chose ���㽶��Ƶ in part because of its reputation for embracing dialogue across difference—leaned into ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues opportunities as a first-year student, attending sponsored events and workshops, becoming involved in ���㽶��Ƶ Hillel, and taking a course on the Politics of Israel and Palestine through the . 

Now a sophomore, she is one of 15 at the Dickey Center this year. The fellows program is a partnership with , a nonprofit organization that helps develop young leaders who can build strong relationships across lines of conflict. Before fall term began, Rochkind and the other fellows participated in a seven-day immersive training on dialogue-based skills. 

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Clockwise from left, Ethan Lang ’23, Erica Cochran ’27, Dina Stein ’26, Anna Filyurina ’26, and StoryCorps Manager of Student Programs Cole Johnston discuss a One Small Step session recorded at ���㽶��Ƶ during the first year of the project. The group was at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge on Nov. 8 for a weekend wellness course centered on ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues. (Photo by Katie Lenhart)

“It was insanely intense,” she says of the training. “The biggest thing I learned was just a mindset of optimism. People I thought could never be open-minded were. You could get a window into what they were thinking, and once you build that relationship, dialogue is possible. That really surprised me.”

She developed a strong connection with the workshop facilitator, who was Palestinian. “We were on the opposite sides of the issue, but at the same time understood each other’s positions. We found that we have similar cultural values,” she says.

Dialogue Fellows are now using what they’ve learned—including facilitation skills and deep listening techniques—to help build dialogue-based community on campus. Rochkind is organizing a dialogue-centered conference, hosted by Hillel, for Jewish student leaders from all eight Ivy League universities.

“I’m taking those skills and making a student program with an enthusiastic student board that’s not top-down from the administration,” Rochkind says. “When we talk about Seeds of Peace and being that seed of learning the skills for dialogue—now I’ve brought it to a community of students who are making it grow, and we’re going to be reaching more students. That’s just a beautiful thing.”

This is exactly the kind of student empowerment that Clemens, who helped pioneer the concept of “brave spaces” in higher education, wants to promote. 

“These skills are important to students not only as leaders of their organizations, but leaders in the world moving forward,” Clemens says.

Shifting student culture

One detail from Westwood’s student survey shows how ���㽶��Ƶ’s emphasis on dialogue is shaping the student body. The survey found that two-thirds of incoming students this year identified dialogue as a factor in their choice to attend ���㽶��Ƶ. 

���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues has been fully incorporated into first-year orientation programming, Clemens says—ensuring that incoming students share a common language around civil discourse. This fall, all members of the Class of 2029 were asked to complete a series of short online modules and in-person conversations over the first three weeks of the term—a partnership ���㽶��Ƶ is piloting with the nonprofit Constructive Dialogue Initiative and the undergraduate house communities.

Sofia Uribe ’29, a first-year student from Long Beach, Calif., grew up in a liberal environment, but “at ���㽶��Ƶ, I’ve had opportunities to talk to more conservative people. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to socialist people,” she says. “And the fact that they can all exist together and have space to share their perspectives—it’s challenging, but that’s where growth comes in.”

Mahoney, now a senior, says he has seen strong interest in DPU and in Dialogues among the first-year class this year. 

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“Even with midterms, we were still seeing 70-plus people come to each weekly meeting, and it’s largely freshmen,” he says. “I’ve noticed a monumental shift in the way that freshmen, in particular, are thinking about these issues. We’re seeing students come into ���㽶��Ƶ with the knowledge that this is a school that really values this.”

Getting involved with ���㽶��Ƶ Dialogues is easy, Mahoney says, because there are so many different opportunities across campus to participate.

“We’re lucky to be at a school where this is an important part of our culture,” he says. “I’m jealous of the ’29s who will get to experience this robust culture of discourse and exchange for the next four years.”