UW-Madison has announced a new
program designed to, quote, foster
and strengthen civil dialog across
the university.
It's called the Wisconsin Exchange,
Pluralism in Practice.
And joining us now to talk about the
program is Chancellor Jennifer
Mnuchin. Thanks for your time today.
Thanks for having me.
So what is the Wisconsin exchange?
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 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
skill. 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.
And looking through the materials,
it doesn't look like this will be a
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 10
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 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 Library
Mall and protest 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 way, protest
is part of free speech.
It's absolutely permitted under the
First Amendment.
But 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 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 the federal
court filed by a woman who said the
UW was blocking her speech on social
media channels.
How does the 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 often on social media,
people are more interested
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.
Alright, Chancellor Minookin, thanks
for your time today.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you for coming in. Thank you,
I appreciate it.
I'm glad we were able to hash that
out.
Yes, I am too, see?
Engagement, civic engagement.
That's what we believe in.
I wish I'd.