This past month, student ambassador Amani Clemons ’24, Alyssa Stankevitz ’23, and Emily Burns ’22 attended the Stavros Niarchos Foundation’s Ithaca Initiative National Student Dialogue, hosted by the Biden School of Public Policy & Administration at the University of Delaware. Over the course of a weekend, these students participated in civil discourse workshops in which they engaged in discussions relating to free speech and hate speech, strong and weak civil discourse, and how to address an array of dialogue issues that face the country.
For the latter half of the conference, the students worked on identifying a problem to be solved at Saint Anselm College and then created an action plan to bring back to campus. The three students designated their campus-wide issue as political apathy, and hope to incorporate the mission of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics into a broader array of campus activities and events, like the Intercultural Center’s Transitions Program and New Student Orientation, both of which occur in the late summer before the beginning of the school year.
In addition to the dialogue work done through the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware, the students also spoke with Valerie Biden Owens, President Joe Biden’s sister, and explored the city of Wilmington. In speaking about the conference, Clemons stated that she “enjoyed being around like-minded individuals and learning important tools to help foster better discourse on campus.” Stankevitz and Burns agreed with Clemons testimony, and added that they “hope this conference continues, because civil discourse is such an important tool in fostering productive dialogue in the world of politics.”