Here's the deal. I work for a great school. The average SAT score here is higher than Penn's average SAT score. These students are ridiculously smart, outrageous over-achievers but (sometimes) immovable in their opinions. They are the young Religious Right. For the most part.
We (the other RDs and I) operate out of the Student Life & Learning Department, so basically, we're always trying to do just what that implies--educate our residents in a way that a classroom doesn't, or sometimes can't. I saw alot of value in trying to teach my students that when they leave here, they're going to enter a world where (gasp!) not everyone thinks like they do. And (shockingly) the people they encounter, may even believe what they believe, but not vote like they vote.
Civil Discourse was Jason and Justin's brainchild. Other staffs (including my own) jumped on board because we saw it as a really valuable program, and something the campus needed. Basically, we pulled all kinds of campus groups together, and gave them tables to set up and then had a professor come in and speak on Civil Discourse and how we can, as humans and as christians, disagree better. Then we aired the Presidential Debate live. It was a huge success. We were told we'd get about 50 people and we had over 150. We didn't change the world. We may not have even changed any minds, but it felt good to try.
Here are some pics from the night:
3 comments:
Ok, I love that Ron Paul and Jesus are so close together on that white board.
And I also love the little "me." down in the corner. Good stuff.
Congrats on working towards a better discourse.
I knooooow! Hence, the "we may not have changed anything..." Lol
But I loved that board idea. It was definitely interesting.
Amazing!! Kudos to you all! And isn't Dr. Gordon an AMAZING speaker and human being?! Love it :)
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