On Thursday night, three faculty members from various disciplines spoke at a “Dialogue Across Disciplines” panel moderated by President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 to discuss strategies for encouraging dialogue and ideological diversity on campus.
The panelists included Associate Professor of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences Oriel FeldmanHall, Senior Lecturer in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies Barbara Tannenbaum and Associate Professor of Religious Studies Andre Willis.
The panel was an installment of the Discovery Through Dialogue initiative. Announced in January, the initiative aims to navigate polarizing issues on campus. Panelists discussed strategies they use within their respective disciplines’ classrooms and projects to create open discussion spaces and encourage students to embrace ideological differences.
In the panel discussion, FeldmanHall delved into how her lab leadership — a social and affective neuroscience lab studying social behavior and decision-making — strives to allow lab members to freely propose and oppose ideas and opinions.
“If you come in with your own ideology and your own value system on your sleeve, that can mean you end up silencing other people’s views,” FeldmanHall said.
Tannenbaum highlighted her work in helping students build the rhetorical and speaking skills to express their viewpoints while listening to others.
“One of the things that has troubled me most about Brown since I’ve been teaching here is that I have students who are afraid to speak their mind,” Tannenbaum said. “They are afraid they will get labeled, they will get classified, they will lose friends, they will be whispered about.”
To Willis, “dialogue is not a virtue when it aims for agreement and consensus,” he said. Instead, he cited the importance of employing interdisciplinary dialogue as a way to uphold curiosity and democratic integrity.
During the event, Paxson also touched on the Student Dialogue Fund, in which student groups can receive funds for “student-led initiatives that cultivate constructive dialogue,” according to a University press release.
Ellie Fuller ’26 attended the panel after having taken a class with FeldmanHall. “We need to step outside the bubble of our discipline and find the common overlap and nuance,” Fuller said.
