Alexis Yelvington: We are here today with Ryan Rose, a student advisory board member at Dialogue Vanderbilt. We are so excited that you could join us today, Ryan. We’re excited to hear about the student experience. Welcome.
Ryan Rose: Thanks. Really appreciate being here today, Alexis.
Alexis Yelvington: Great. Well, we’ll just jump right into it. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about your role as a student board member for Dialogue Vanderbilt?
Ryan Rose: Sure. My name is Ryan Rose. I am a rising junior this year at Vanderbilt. I’m originally from Chicago and after high school moved to Florida. I’m majoring in human organizational development and minoring in business. I’m pretty involved in campus in a lot of different things: Greek life, plenty of extracurricular and pre-professional stuff, but I would say above all my favorites has definitely been working with Dialogue Vanderbilt as a student advisory board member.
Dialogue Vanderbilt is the campus-wide initiative focused on free expression and civil discourse, and it was launched two years ago. Andwhen it was launched two years ago, I was part of an inaugural cohort of 15 students that lead the direction of the board, at least on the student level for the student body, and Dialogue Vanderbilt and the Student Advisory Board’s goal is to equip the community with tools and opportunities to have really respectful and thoughtful conversations across political differences, across backgrounds, and really on any topic. And what I’ve really loved about the Student Advisory Board is that I’ve been able to have a tangible impact on just bettering the campus culture.
Alexis Yelvington: So, what kind of things as a student are impacting that culture do you see happening with the Dialogue program there?
Ryan Rose: For sure. I think that what really impacts the campus culture is the school’s commitment to free expression and academic freedom. But the fact that it starts really at day one in the admissions process; not for my year, but for the year after, the admissions prompt was actually focused on having a difficult conversation. And then the moment that incoming freshmen get to campus there are lectures and conversations, and this whole focus on building up the values of having difficult conversations is really integrated into the freshman experience incredibly well. So, I think that’s just a really great start that I’ve been grateful to be a part of.
And then, beyond that, we’ve been able to bring in a bunch of amazing speakers, have very thoughtful debates, and just be able to talk to so many people and connect to folks on campus in so many different ways from postering people’s thoughts after the election to, really, you name it. Just having a million different conversations with a million different people. It’s been great.
Alexis Yelvington: That’s awesome to hear. Through this pluralism work we’re doing here, we’re really trying to highlight some tangible examples of how people can practice pluralism. It’s often one of those things that people talk about, but don’t really know exactly how to implement. Are there things that are happening on campus that are facilitating this culture that allows these conversations to happen?
Ryan Rose: For sure. I would say one anecdote that comes to mind is in March, Dialogue Vanderbilt had a faith leader round table discussion of sorts with Interfaith America. And in the inside circle there were 10 faith leaders from Nashville across really 10 different faith backgrounds, you name it. And on the outside circle, you probably had 20, 30, 40 people just coming to listen and understand how faith connects us, despite the differences of all these 10 different faiths and understand the through lines. And I think that’s just a really great example of pluralism, not only on Vanderbilt’s campus, but in the Nashville community as a whole.
Alexis Yelvington: When we talk to Professor Igo, she spoke a little bit about how important it was to have students really involved to get the buy-in, from the get-go with this program. Can you tell us a little bit about the input that students have had and how that has made the program effective at Vanderbilt?
Ryan Rose: For sure. I think that these last two years of Dialogue Vanderbilt have really been just a test run and an experiment in the best of ways. And I would say about twice a month we meet as a board, all in this office that’s right beyond the door, and are able to go initiative by initiative of all the Dialogue Vandy’s offering from speakers, to lunch and learns, to tabling, to you name it, with poster boards where people are free to just write their thoughts, and be able to actively reflect on how each of those initiatives are going.
And then also be able to discuss with Dr. Igo, with the executive director, the program manager, on what changes we’d like to see made, and I would say, very often, they are implemented. We’re probably moving a little bit away from consistent speaker events and moving to spaces where guests can come in and have conversations rather than just lecturing, which has been a great change that the leaders of this program have definitely listened to students on.
Alexis Yelvington: So, as this program’s developed, I know in any kind of line of pluralism work, it’s often met with a lot of skepticism. People are hesitant.
Ryan Rose: Yeah.
Alexis Yelvington: It feels a little trite sometimes. What would you say to people that have these kinds of hesitations?
Ryan Rose: I think first of all, just to start and give a little bit of context, I’ll say I personally haven’t felt a ton of skepticism around this pluralism and dialogue work at Vanderbilt, and I think that students, faculty, staff are all really willing to engage and participate meaningfully.
But if I did have to respond to skepticism on campus, I would probably tell people that this work is very, very applicable in real life and that you have to just buy in because you’re always going to have to have difficult conversations with people of opposing points of view, be it in the workplace or class or you name it, and just in the hope of trying to come to an understanding and respecting one another’s differences at the same time.
Alexis Yelvington: Yeah, definitely important for a college experience as well, I’m sure.
Ryan Rose: Yeah, absolutely.
Alexis Yelvington: Great. So, we’ve kind of spoken to this a little bit already, but you’ve been there kind of as this program has developed throughout the couple of years. Have you seen the effects on campus? Have you seen a shift in the culture and people’s approach to this on campus during your time there?
Ryan Rose: So, I think the growth we’ve seen for Dialogue Vanderbilt has been incredible these past two years. Just from an idea to now having 10,000 folks at our events over this last academic year. And I would say a lot of that growth, to me, is attributed to the fact that Vanderbilt is kind of in this rare Goldilocks zone of schools where you have a pretty big conservative population, pretty big liberal population, a lot of geographic diversity. And just with all the political events of recent years and just global news, I think we’re very lucky to be at a school where people really are interested in just learning and understanding. And that has been a huge driver of growth because they want to know why are the events that are going on in the world actually going on?
Alexis Yelvington: Well, this has been great to hear about the student experience, Ryan. The last question I want to ask you is, what advice do you have for somebody who wants to be a aspiring pluralist and wants to get better at having these tough conversations?
Ryan Rose: For sure. I think first of all, the most important thing is just buy in and have these conversations as much as possible. If you’re trying to aim to bring pluralism, not just immediately to you yourself, but also to your community, then find people who are interested in understanding a lot of perspectives and mobilize together. Stop thinking about how this person’s on my side and this person’s against me, and try to find common ground and understand that grey area better.
Alexis Yelvington: That’s a great piece of advice and a perfect note to end it on. Thank you so much for being with us today, Ryan. We really appreciate your time.
Ryan Rose: Of course. Thank you so much, Alexis.
