A year ago today, I wrote on my blog about the “sickening violence” of the massacres and kidnappings by Hamas. Little did I know that the violence would provoke a response that, while profoundly degrading Hamas’s military abilities, would kill tens of thousands of civilians and result in the destabilization of the entire region.
But I don’t want to write about events in the Middle East, about which I have strong feelings and slight expertise. I do want to talk about how the past year has affected education. We’ve seen fear and loathing — resulting from Oct. 7 and its aftermath — spread across the US and onto college campuses. It would be an understatement to say that many on campuses are increasingly wary of one another. It doesn’t have to be that way, as I have written in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education (which I draw on here).
As students and teachers, as people devoted to education, we must try to learn from all this. We can model meaningful opportunities for sustainable peace by showing that strong differences don’t have to end in violence. Wesleyan has programs that do just that. The Office of Equity and Inclusion, Academic and Student Affairs, along with the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, have all initiated educational activities to help students, faculty and staff build a greater capacity to have dialogues across difference. Sociology Professor Robyn Autry has been working with colleagues here, at Harvard and at the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, to integrate intellectual diversity and open conversation across the curriculum. Executive Director Khalilah Brown-Dean is building on the Allbritton’s history of community partnerships to help students learn to listen more deeply, respect differences of opinion, and find ways to take positive actions even when disagreements are not fully resolved. With the help of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and the Templeton Religious Trust, the Chaplains use a similar model as they build interfaith literacy across religious groups that might at first glance seem to have irreconcilable world views.
At the heart of all these efforts is a commitment to pluralism, not sectarianism — a commitment to learn from those whose views are different from one’s own. Building on that engagement, we can foster conversations that take us beyond the borders of the university, leaving our comfort zones to engage with our fellow citizens and not just with like-minded undergrads and professors. In the coming months, we will be announcing grants to support this kind of work — both at the curricular and co-curricular levels. Going beyond a defense of freedom of expression, as Eboo Patel has counseled, we can integrate pluralism into a great many aspects of the education we offer. We can model a pragmatic liberal education that comes from cultivating connection, not canceling perceived enemies.
October 7th is a day of mourning for many on our campus, and I am hopeful that everyone here will respect that. However one marks this sad day, let us remember that education depends not just on free speech and critical thinking, but on a willingness to listen for the potential to build things together. A year ago, I ended my blog post like this: May the wounded receive care, the kidnapped be returned to their homes, and the bereaved find comfort. And may it not be long before the peacemakers can find a way. Alas, it has now been a year with scant prospects for peace. Let us do what we can to help peacemakers find a way. At a time when so much is being destroyed, let’s be peacemakers who together use our education for constructive purposes.