Embrace Intellectual Vitality, Don’t Dismiss It

Harvard has a discourse problem. Just look at last year’s senior survey, which reported that only 36 percent of students felt comfortable expressing opposing views on controversial topics in courses.

There’s no quick way to create a culture where students feel comfortable engaging in open, honest dialogue. But Harvard’s new intellectual vitality initiative is a good start.

This program has long been in the making. Three years ago, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana began facilitating conversations between Harvard undergraduates and faculty to address what many students saw as a lack of free idea exchange at the College. Last year, the initiative launched its student-facing plan through a media campaign and an array of event programming.

This year, the initiative has introduced much more far-reaching changes, especially for freshmen students. New orientation modules for freshmen included a three-hour long program from the Constructive Dialogue Institute called “Perspectives,” a scientific, yet sensitive curriculum made to help students navigate difficult conversations on campus. Freshmen students also discussed intellectual vitality during orientation and even met with Government Professor Michael J. Sandel in Sanders Theater, where he mediated a civil discussion about the ethics of artificial intelligence.

The intellectual vitality initiative included changes beyond freshmen programming, both in the classroom and in residential life. Gen Ed and Expository Writing courses — which are mandatory for all Harvard students — now directly reinforce the skills of civil discourse. In addition, the Safra Center for Ethics has continued its Fellowship in Values Engagement, which recruits tutors and proctors to serve as leaders promoting ethical reflection and a culture of civil disagreement.

These efforts are steps in the right direction toward revitalizing meaningful campus discourse, and the University is right to specifically target the incoming class of 2028. Before they even arrive on campus, new students should understand that civil disagreement is fundamental to Harvard’s mission, that the University does not want its graduates to all think the same way. Quite the opposite: The entire purpose of a university is to produce intellectually unique and vibrant individuals.

Of course, the initiative has its critics.

It’s certainly true that the initiative can only do so much. After all, it’s incredibly difficult to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict — an issue so deeply personal to many students — or any number of other sensitive issues with an open mind and calm demeanor. Students hold different values, beliefs, and moral systems that run deep within their upbringing and lived experiences, which often make disagreements irreconcilable.

Furthermore, many progressives oppose increasing the number of conservative voices on campus, which a commitment to intellectual vitality — and therefore ideological diversity — might imply. And campus activists claim that the initiative attempts to dilute their advocacy, because it reframes their fight for survival and justice as simply a mere debate that has multiple valid sides.

But these concerns should not lead us to dismiss Harvard’s commitment to intellectual vitality. In fact, lambasting ideological diversity actually deepens the polarization on campus, because it refuses to acknowledge that many students find Harvard’s monolithic discourse troubling. Refusing to engage with the initiative means rejecting not just the effort itself, but also the valid concerns that prompted its creation.

This effort for intellectual vitality is not meant to suppress our deep-rooted passions and concerns. Rather, it can help us better manage these intense feelings with others who feel very differently.

I hope those who care about the Israel-Palestine conflict and other pressing issues remember that their movements grow stronger with more debate, not less. It saddens me that many students have decided that engaging with these issues is simply not worth the cost.

If students do not explore and develop their views on contentious issues, we will be much less prepared to handle the global challenges we will soon inherit once we graduate.

College is the time for us to refine our personal, unique beliefs on the world. Let’s embrace these years with best intentions, good faith, and exploration, rather than closed mindedness.

Calvin D. Alexander, Jr., a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Adams House