Izza Haq, an alumnus of CEHV's Conversations on Morality, Politics and Society (ARTSSCI 2400) course, recently wrote an article for The Lantern about CEHV's dialogue facilitation efforts and their connection to wellbeing. The article featured interviews with Aaron Yarmel (CEHV's Associate Director), Jamie Herman (Civil Discourse Graduate Research Associate), and Salma Albezreh (a former Undergraduate CEHV Civil Discourse Fellow). 

In addition to covering CEHV's efforts to train and engage students in dialogue on campus, the article discussed ways that Yarmel and Herman engage in philosophical discussions with children at local schools beyond CEHV's formal programming. Such work is important for recognizing and developing the capacity of children for deliberating with others and discovering insights about the world:

“I think it’s deeply insulting to young children to treat them like they’re just passive receptacles for knowledge because it underestimates their ability to know things about the world and also fails to prepare them to deliberate with others in the pursuit of answers to the central problems that we face in our lives,” Yarmel said.

CEHV's dialogue facilitation efforts are meant to serve the needs of students, including student activists who fight for social change. Albezreh offered an important insight about the relationship between civil discourse and activism: 

“Civil discourse is necessary for any sort of movement, particularly within movements,” Albezreh said. “In that sense, it’s not meant to replace other efforts like disruptive activism.”

Click to Read the Article