messiness. And it just needs to stop.
>> All right. Congressman Pocan thanks for your time.
>> Sure. Thank you. >> UW-Madison has announced
a new program designed to foster and strengthen civil
dialog across the university. It's called the
Wisconsin Exchange joining us now to talk
about the program is Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin.
Thanks for your time today. >> Thanks for having me.
>> So so what is the Wisconsin Exchange?
is a collection of programs and opportunities for
students, as well as faculty and staff, to gain
experience in engaging with each other across their
differences, whether those differences come as
differences in background or identity or viewpoint
and perspective. We already had a number of things
happening on campus around this, but we wanted to to
grow those further because I think it's a significant
priority for our campus and frankly, for our nation.
>> So Republicans have criticized UW-Madison for
liberal professors. Making young conservatives feel
uncomfortable on campus. Is this a response to those
types of complaints? >> This is actually
something that I think is deeper and far broader. I
think that universities are perfect places for people
to learn from, and to learn to talk to people who
experience the world differently from the way
that they do. That goes all the way back to sifting and
winnowing a core idea at UW-Madison. And I think we
do a fair amount of that already. And I also think
there are opportunities to be more intentional about
it, and also to give people practice and skills. Many
people these days live in relatively siloed
environments in terms of viewpoint and perspective,
and we want people to get out of their silos and have
the experience of learning from and talking to each
other. materials. It doesn't look
requirement, not like a freshman class. So how do
you get the people that may need this the most to
actually buy into it? >> That's a fair question,
and I think we're frankly starting out with a
coalition of the willing. We're starting out with
people who are interested in doing this. It won't
reach everybody on our very large, pluralistic campus
from the get go. We already have programs like the
deliberation dinners, where 375 of our undergraduates
are raising their hands to come together for six
dinners across the year in groups of ten that are
selected for viewpoint diversity, to gain skill
and practice. In talking about pretty contentious
issues and learning that you can learn from people
who see the world very differently from themselves,
that's grown over the past couple of years each year.
And in fact, we had more people who wanted to
participate this year than we could than we could
include. And these additional programs will at
first be for those who are interested, I hope down the
road that we might be able to grow some trainings in
other spaces around the university and reach even
more students, as well as faculty and staff.
>> So in recent years, we've seen student
protesters take over over Gaza. We've seen
conservative groups book speakers accused of hate
speech. How would this program deal with those
types of environments? >> Well, I mean, in some
ways, protest is part of free speech. It's
absolutely permitted under the First Amendment that
you can also have time, space, time, place and
manner rules that limit it. Similarly, we've had many
speakers from across the political spectrum,
including very conservative speakers, as well as very
left leaning ones who've come to campus and shared
their views with people who are interested in hearing
from them without incident. I think that is absolutely
part of what needs to happen on a university
campus. We also need more opportunities for people
who disagree with each other to show that they can
do that diplomatically, respectfully, not
necessarily succeeding in changing each other's mind.
But but when you hear from someone with a different
point of view, sometimes it does change your mind.
Other times it sharpens and focuses your own arguments.
I hear that just before me on this show, you had two
congressmen from opposite sides of the aisle talking
to each other. That's a perfect example.
>> So in August, the university lost a free
speech case in a federal court filed by a woman who
said the UW was blocking her speech on social media
channels. How does moderation of speech on
social media work with civil discourse in the
public space? Because often that speech is overlapping.
>> Yeah. I mean, I think that we need to have robust
dialog in all the different spaces that are available.
I don't, frankly, find that social media is the most
useful or valuable space for having civic engagement
across our differences. I think that often on social
media, people are more interested in in, in
supporting their existing point of view, rather than
bringing curiosity and compassion to their
engagement with one another. So I don't see this
initiative as terribly connected to the social
media space of it all. It's much more about in real
life and perhaps virtually giving people opportunities
to be part of conversations. >> All right, Chancellor
Mnookin, thanks for your time today.
>> Thank you so much for having me.
[MUSIC] >> We wanted to ask the
Chancellor about the state of the UW athletic
department and head football coach, Luke
Fickell. Chancellor Mnookin wanted to keep the focus on