Season 5: Episode 13 Transcript
Dialogue
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's dean of admissions and financial aid, and this is Admissions Beat.
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This is a moment in higher ed where lots of campuses are having some hard conversations. Current events often cross into the campus environment. And as accepted students, you're attending open houses. As juniors, you're visiting campus during your break and you're on campus tour. And you're seeing this conversation play out, sometimes actively. Maybe you stumble upon a protest. Sometimes you're reading the student paper and you're seeing ideas debated. And as somebody who's not on that campus, you may not always have the context of what the conversation is, but it's happening.
And I would point us this week towards dialogue as something to consider as you discover and as you assess. Each campus will have a different conversation with itself, among itself that responds to things local, national, global. What kind of conversation do you want to have? What voice do you have as you come into that conversation? And what are the voices of your peers and faculty and perhaps alumni having on the campuses you visit?
So this week we have a podcast of one, I am my own guest. So when I come back, I'm going to share an essay I wrote that I'd like you to hear and consider as the last days of April play out and you visit campuses and see and hear things. I'll be right back.
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Conversation animates a college community. Discussion, dialogue, and debate are enhanced by diverse perspectives and backgrounds as assumptions are challenged, ideas are considered, and new opportunities are imagined.
To me, this is the magic of college.
It's been a few decades since my own undergraduate experience, but what lingers across those years are memories of spirited discussion guided by an informed professor, and late-night debates in a dorm room over a shared pizza.
My suburban upbringing, my first-gen view of myself and of the world expanded in those moments. I listened, I pushed back, I stretched. I didn't always agree with what my peers thought, but their often impassioned comments made me consider the issues of the day in a more deliberate way. Those conversations made me a more flexible and nuanced thinker. Sometimes I changed my mind. Sometimes it reinforced what I knew to be true for me. The Lee who emerged from that undergraduate space was more worldly and alert than the boy who arrived four years earlier.
That type of growth opportunity might be even more essential today than it was for me in the early 1980s. For example, at Dartmouth, it's a small college where discussion-based classrooms are the norm. Dialogue in that space is foundational to who we are. It's a place where professors come together to foster spirited debate and dialogue as they probe the nuances of current events, and often our classrooms sync with those events.
And I would say to all of you, as you're pondering this next step for yourself, what does dialogue look like on the campuses you're considering? Is there evidence of diverse perspectives? How does the faculty foster it, promote it, encourage it? And how do you participate, actively or maybe quietly? What does that mean to you? How do you grow? How do you see your campus as a place where ideas are lively?
As part of a dialogue initiative at my college, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited earlier this year to understand how this place had navigated events in the Middle East and how the faculty and students had come together to think collaboratively in that space. And the secretary said, "This initiative highlights the way differences can be aired in a civil way without conflict."
Does that matter to you? Do you see evidence of it? If you do or don't, dig deeper, ask questions, talk to your tour guide about it. When the admission officer finishes a presentation, raise your hand and ask, "How is this place responding to world events?" You alone can assess the answer to that question because I think it's an important question to ask.
We live in a fast space. Information is everywhere. A few moments offer us an opportunity to digest and assess what we hear and see and read. Navigating that reality is the opportunity of a liberal arts education, but I would say it's the opportunity of college more broadly no matter what you're studying. How does that promise sync with dialogue? How do the places you are exploring walk that talk? Only you can assess that for yourself.
And I share this with you today. It's a shorter episode than normal, but I wanted to weigh in and give you permission to think about this and to just alert you to the idea that this is part of a campus's vibe. This is what makes each place its own special community.
And as you visit, as you explore, and for those of you who have been admitted as you're weighing this final decision, where do I see myself? What kind of community do I hope to join? Who are my peers? What's important to them? What matters? This is the question to ask yourself.
For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. I'll be back next week. Thanks for listening.