MMC Promotes Civic Discourse with New Dialogue Series

The initiative, titled Let’s Talk, debuted last month, with events lined up through the fall semester. Work on developing this program was initiated by Interim President Peter Naccarato, who recognized the College’s role in providing opportunities and spaces for good-faith conversations within the community amid a contentious election season and numerous global conflicts.

“The Marymount Manhattan community is composed of students, faculty, and staff from around the world who hold diverse beliefs, ideas, and opinions,” said Naccarato. “For that community to function as a fertile educational space, we must hone our skills to dialogue, collaborate, and thoughtfully listen to each other.”

To ensure that this effort reached all corners of campus, Naccarato enlisted the support of three entities—the President’s Council for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Academic Affairs, and Student Life—to organize discussions and secure experts to serve as guest speakers. Inviting outside perspectives was an especially crucial point, according to Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs / Dean of the Faculty Katie Langan.

“Modeling critical discourse is an important gesture in a place of higher education and is particularly significant when the impulse in our social-media-oriented culture is to ‘cancel’ others with whom you disagree,” Langan said. 

The resulting events have taken a variety of forms that are true to MMC’s interdisciplinary spirit. They include The Citizenship Cycle, a 48-hour play festival organized by the investigative theatre company What Will the Neighbors Say?, whose co-artistic directors, Sam Hood Adrain and James Clements, are MMC adjunct Theatre professors. Working with 20 student artists, they produced original material exploring the meaning of citizenship and democracy presented by the Theatre Arts department in September.

In addition, the College is hosting Dialogue Across Difference, dialogue skill-building workshops that draw from social science research as well as ancient practices. Led by Chief EDI Strategist Christine Gregory, it explores ways to engage in dialogue with others even when you fundamentally disagree. A session for staff took place on October 22, and one for faculty, cosponsored by the Center for Teaching Innovation and Excellence (C-TIE), will take place on October 30.

“Even when you disagree with others’ viewpoints, there are constructive ways to engage in productive and respectful dialogue,” said Gregory. “These workshops serve as good jumping-off points for folks to examine ways they can improve how they relate to their colleagues, friends, and family during tense times.”

Let’s Talk also includes a Democracy and Civil Discourse Roundtable series sponsored by Academic Affairs. The first event, held last month in collaboration with C-TIE, featured Elizabeth Clay Roy, CEO of Generation Citizen, a nonprofit that offers tools to help young people build civic skills. Roy spoke to students about how they can actively participate in the political system and begin to direct their efforts toward real change.

In October, the College held a discussion on the 2024 presidential election with Joe Lowndes, a political scholar and Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College, and Kai Rosenthal, co-president of the League of Women Voters of the City of New York. Lowndes explored the history of political movements that have brought us to our current moment of incivility in politics, and Rosenthal gave an overview of her nonprofit’s initiatives to promote informed and active participation in government. With organizers thinking of ways to engage students not just as attendees but also as participants, the talk was led by two Communication and Media Arts students: Elliott Case ’25 and Neelima KS ’27.

“It was great to have these professionals who know a lot about elections, but also our students who are interested and engaged in learning more about the political process as well,” said Peter Schaefer, associate dean for Academic Affairs and associate professor of Communication and Media Arts.

The series’ next event, “America Faces Global Tensions,” scheduled for November 13, will take on an international focus, Schaefer said, examining conflicts around the globe and how the next president will shape foreign policy. “It’s a chance for students and faculty to talk about America’s place in the world given that there’s so much instability,” he said. He and other organizers are working to secure international scholars for the discussion.

To learn more about upcoming Let’s Talk events, check MMC’s calendar and follow the College’s social media accounts.

Published: October 24, 2024