22 Oct With the Wisconsin Exchange, UW–Madison is strengthening a culture of civil dialogue across difference
A group of students take part in the first Deliberation Dinner event on Oct. 9 in the Gordon Dining and Event Center. The dinner series run by the Discussion Project brings together students from diverse backgrounds and political viewpoints to discuss timely topics in a constructive environment. Photo: Bryce Richter / UW–Madison
At a university large enough to warrant its own zip code, how do you help an entire campus, full of people with different viewpoints and perspectives, learn to engage effectively across difference?
You turn civil dialogue into daily practice — at events that model how to discuss difficult issues, in courses that teach civic engagement as an essential skill, by offering tools and techniques that help users practice conversations before taking them live, through partnerships with organizations advancing this work on a national scale.
And you invite the whole campus community to help shape how broad viewpoint diversity, or pluralism, and dialogue across difference thrive at UW–Madison.
These are the goals behind the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s new initiative, the Wisconsin Exchange: Pluralism in Practice, which aims to help students, faculty and staff learn to engage, live and lead in a polarized world. The effort connects existing programs and cultivates new opportunities to make constructive conversation a visible and integral part of everyday life on campus.
“Learning happens best when people with different beliefs, experiences and backgrounds come together,” says Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin.