My StoryCorps Experience
If you haven't heard already, Dartmouth's new president Sian Beilock announced a new campus-wide initiative at the beginning of this year called Dartmouth Dialogues, which encompasses a lot of new projects on campus. One of the projects is the first ever college partnership with StoryCorps, a non-profit that facilitates conversations between friends and families, as well as strangers with its One Small Step program.
One Small Step brings together two strangers with two opposing viewpoints or political beliefs to talk about their lived experiences. The thought behind the project is that you really can't be filled with hatred towards the individual after hearing what their favorite childhood memory is or their favorite family vacation story. StoryCorps is currently bringing together Dartmouth students and alumni with differing political beliefs to have conversations that, though talk about politics, mostly talk about their experiences at Dartmouth, their families, and core memories. During a fifty minute recorded conversation that feels like a podcast, two individuals' stories are captured.
During my spring break, StoryCorps reached out to me to do a conversation with a Dartmouth alumnus who is a professional journalist! I taped my conversation virtually at the Atlanta History Center, and though the conversation has yet to be released, it was a really great experience and one that really allowed me to focus on my own life and beliefs.
Overall, I am really looking forward to the Dartmouth Dialogues project and can't wait to hear my classmates' stories!