On Jan. 10, 2024, College President Sian Leah Beilock launched Dartmouth Dialogues, a program designed to “facilitate conversations and skills bridging political and personal divides,” according to past coverage by The Dartmouth. The initiative has included several speaker series, a partnership with StoryCorps One Small Step — a nonprofit dedicated to organizing conversations with individuals across the political spectrum — and the Dialogue Project, a skill-building initiative designed to “foster empathy, active listening and collective responsibility,” according to past coverage.
In the 12 months since, Dartmouth Dialogues has trained over 1,000 first-year students and 142 staff and faculty members in “dialogue skills,” according to the College website. In 2024, approximately 8,700 people attended Dartmouth Dialogues programming — a series of 13 events with guest speakers — according to Dialogue Project co-director Kristi Clemens.
The program has also become increasingly intertwined with the student experience. During orientation week at the beginning of the fall term, members of the Class of 2028 attended a dialogue skill workshop, according to Clemens.
Evzen Selvon ’28 said he “enjoyed” the workshop, noting that the speakers were “effective” at communicating their message around “respectful conversations.”
“The speakers were very excellent, and I do think that they were effective at setting the ground rules for conversation at Dartmouth,” Selvon said. “It helped establish a framework for how we can have respectful conversations about sensitive topics.”
As part of its mission to encourage difficult conversations, the Dialogue Project launched a Middle East Dialogues series on Jan. 10, 2024, which brought together the Jewish studies and Middle Eastern studies programs to discuss the Israel-Hamas war.
Vincent Castillo ’28 said he watched the “Who Supports Hamas?” event online because he wanted to learn more about Israeli and Palestinian points of view.
“I really did enjoy the … talk that they had,” Castillo said. “It just felt more human and conversational.”
However, some students have expressed confusion about the initiative. Sabik Jawad ’26 said he viewed Dartmouth Dialogues as a means of addressing the “distrust” over freedom of expression on campus — but remained unsure of its mission.
“I’m not exactly sure what the purpose is,” Jawad said.
Selvon said he did not find Dartmouth Dialogue events “too engaging” because he already had similar experiences in high school as a leader of a group that discussed “sensitive topics.”
“While I’m not saying I don’t have anything to learn, I just feel like I don’t know how much I would actually gain out of some events on their own,” Selvon said.
Castillo added that the program should feature more “student-led discussion[s]” in order to reflect the “actual nuances” of debate on campus.
“I feel like [Dartmouth Dialogues] is really just stating a method of how a conversation should be, but it doesn’t really reflect the actual nuances of how actual discussion really is,” Castillo said. “I just feel like taking this conceptual approach doesn’t really hold down to be true in the actual facets of life.”
Clemens noted that a “challenge” of the Dialogue Project is its “messaging” to the community about its goals. As the program enters its second year, event organizers are aiming to provide “bite-sized opportunities” for students to try out dialogue skills and practice them outside a “formal conversation,” she said.
According to Clemens, programmers also plan to facilitate conversations with athletic teams and “might provide” training to student leaders, including orientation leaders and undergraduate advisors. She added that Dartmouth Dialogues intends to get the One Small Step name “out there” more and that they will collaborate to pair students and campus services employees for conversations during the week of Feb. 17.
“These are people that you see around campus all the time you interact with, but you don’t know a lot about them in their lives,” Clemens said.
In January 2025, the Dialogue Project introduced a special topic series in partnership with the Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies department — borders and immigration. The series began with a panel discussion titled “What is Mass Deportation?” where four immigration experts discussed President Donald Trump’s threat of mass deportation and its potential impact on undocumented immigrants.
Government Professor Sean Westwood said the event was “largely focused” on a “single” perspective on immigration.
“I think that the events in the fall from Dartmouth Dialogues were very important because they did span ideological divides,” Westwood said. “I would like to see more of that moving forward, and I think that that’s the most productive path forward for these kinds of initiatives on campus.”
Westwood added that while the program has been “very successful,” it is not as “clearly motivated.” However, he noted that Dartmouth Dialogues does have a role in “[equipping] … students to be citizens” and “to have hard conversations.”
“I think for most students who want to change the world, there has to be a next step, and I think Dartmouth Dialogues is part of that next step,” Westwood said.
