Conversations for Change

Tent Talks Week 2

What do you believe is an effective way for individuals to engage in politics without all the arguing?

A few ways are: Art and Expression, Civil Discourse, Civic Education, Community Involvement, Educating Yourself, Empowering Others, Engaging on Social Media, Joining Advocacy Groups, Letter Writing and Petitions, Participating in Public Meetings, Peaceful Protests, Running for Office, Supporting Peaceful Initiatives, Supporting Responsible Media, Voting.

About Conversations for Change

Story after story demonstrates how political polarization on college campuses has made constructive conversation across difference more challenging than ever. But college campuses are precisely where those conversations are most needed. They are fundamental to education—to intellectual and personal growth, and to finding bold solutions to the complex problems that plague our nation and the world.

Gettysburg College has both the opportunity and the responsibility to address this challenge head-on. Since its inception, Gettysburg College has stood for freedom of expression. Our rich institutional heritage challenges us to engage in and provide leadership for addressing the critical social and political issues of our time. This can only be accomplished by deeply engaging our diverse campus community in a series of conversations designed to bridge personal and political divides. We are uniquely positioned to model the possibility and the necessity of seeing the humanity in one another, even when we disagree.

Conversations for Change will engage our campus community and beyond through the following programs:

Dialogue Skill-Building: Dialogue facilitation workshops will teach our students, faculty, and staff to initiate and manage conversations about challenging topics. Participants will come away from these workshops with an enhanced ability to listen and ask questions so that they may better understand another’s perspective and where it comes from, as well as to communicate one’s own perspective in the most constructive way possible.
Speakers and Panels: These events will feature faculty, students, and external guests that speak to the complexity of current events. Potential speakers include Braver Angels, the American Bar Association Task Force on American Democracy, Common Ground USA, Bipartisan Policy Center, and a debate between members of Gettysburg student political organizations.
Campus community engagement activities: Democracy requires active participation. We will provide opportunities for our students, faculty, and staff to actively contribute to the shaping of the Conversations series by designing and implementing their own innovative projects, funded by College-awarded mini-grants. Additionally, we will be working with groups of students over the summer to draft a “commitment to conversation” pledge that campus community members may choose to sign at the start of the fall semester, design a news literacy challenge, and coordinate a voter registration drive.
Partnership with the Institute for Citizens & Scholars’ College Presidents for Civic Preparedness initiative: President Iuliano is one of 99 college presidents from across the country who have joined forces to advance civil discourse in higher education. The partnership gives Gettysburg access to faculty development workshops, national conversations, and other resources focused on advancing critical dialogue on our campuses and beyond.

Fall 2024 speakers

Raj Vinnakota

“Living in Our Community: Conversations for Change”
Aug, 26, 7pm, CUB Ballroom

As President of the Institute For Citizens And Scholars, Raj Vinnakota empowers college students to become effective citizens, bringing people a different perspectives together to improve society and strengthen democracy. He created a coalition of nearly 100 colleges focused on civil discourse, critical thinking, and respectful, free expression. Vinnakota kicks off Conversations for Change with an inspiring message on the first day of classes to share practical strategies students can use at Gettysburg to create more peaceful society amid contentious, elections, and world events.

Colin Woodard

“U.S. Democracy in Crisis: How We Got Here, Why We’re Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It”
Sept. 17, 7pm, Mara Auditorium

The Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center is testing a new national narrative that reflects who we are as a people and furthers liberal democratic and civic nationalist ideas. The lab just completed a national poll to gauge how Americans define the country around the civic ideals ancestry, heritage, history or character Colin Woodard will share the results and explain how they create a new narrative based on what most Americans hold valuable. Woodard is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and POLITICO contributing editor at His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.

Photo: courtesy Colin Woodard by Tom Groening

James Coan

A Nation Divided? We’re More Alike Than We Think
Oct. 17, 7pm, Mara Auditorium

We’re living in tumultuous times. Politics and world affairs have Americans hurling insults at each other from behind phones and computer screens. But is that everyone, or just a vocal few? There’s evidence that proves most of us are actually more alike than "polarization" narratives suggest. James Coan, Executive Director of More Like US, makes the case that on issues like democracy, human rights, political threats, abortion, gun control and more, there’s plenty of overlap in public opinion to start the conversation from where we agree, instead of where we don’t. Hear James explain this perception gap and offer solutions to build on consensus that he argues already exists.

Roger Worthington

Navigating the Culture of Division:
Difficult Dialogues Teaching and Learning as Pathways toward Understanding and Leadership
Nov. 15, 12-1pm, CUB 260

In a time marked by heightened emotions and societal divides, our responsibility as educators extends far beyond facilitating content learning. We must create spaces where students feel safe to express their thoughts and fears, while also preparing them for leadership in a deeply polarized world. This talk will explore how faculty can effectively engage students in meaningful dialogue across differences, equipping them with the skills to navigate complex, often controversial topics tied to current events. Faculty are charged with helping to guide students to discern facts from misinformation and disinformation -- to use critical thinking in moving beyond preconceptions. Additionally, we will discuss the leadership role higher education institutions can play in advancing constructive dialogue across various segments of society, fostering deeper understanding and greater accountability.

Events

Dialogue workshops

Dialogue to Action: Free Speech and Cancel Culture and Intergroup Dialogue: Reaching Across the Aisle are two brand new co-curricular programs that are part of the Conversations for Change initiative. Each program has applications open right now through the end-of-the-day September 8. Each program will begin the week of September 16.

Dialogue to Action application
Intergroup Dialogue application

Dialogue to Action: Free Speech and Cancel Culture

Dialogue to Action (D2A) is a year-long program using the Sustained Dialogue Method. Two facilitators trained by the Sustained Dialogue Institute will facilitate 10 weeks of dialogue sessions this fall running from the week of September 16 through the week of November 18. Students will then participate in a group advocacy project during the spring semester under the guidance of EI, GLC, and CPS administrators. As part of this advocacy project, students will have the opportunity to visit Harrisburg, PA, the state capitol, or Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol to pursue their advocacy project. 8-12 students in the junior and senior classes will be selected to participate in this program. Juniors and seniors are encouraged to apply to participate in this program.

This year’s D2A topic is Free Speech and Cancel Culture. Students will explore and share their perspectives and experiences of freedom of speech and cancel culture with the primary questions being “when, if ever, does speech go too far?”, “when is it appropriate for speech to be regulated?”, and “when have you felt silenced?” Students will share their experiences of feeling free or not free to speak and their experiences with cancel culture. Ultimately, students will identify a state or national level advocacy campaign to pursue in spring 2025. The topic might also yield recommendations to be shared with campus leaders.

Intergroup Dialogue: Reaching Across the Aisle

Intergroup Dialogue (IGD) Fall 2024: Reaching Across the Aisle will focus on one's political identity, discussing the various points of view held by individual group members, and active engagement in intentional structured conversations across difference with an aim to increase understanding.

This group will meet 8 times throughout the fall 2024 semester, with each session lasting approximately 90 minutes and taking place on Friday afternoons after 3pm. Participants are required to attend all sessions in their entirety, actively participate in the creation and upholding of group developed ground rules, and lastly engage in dialogue with the aim to better understand viewpoints different than one's own.

Mini-grants

The C4C Mini-Grants support student-driven initiatives to host workshops, speakers, and other programs that promote dialogue and community members engaging across differences. Any student organization may apply for a C4C Mini-Grant to enhance an existing program or to create new opportunities for our community to engage in this important work.

To access the application for the mini-grants please follow these steps:

1. Sign into engageGettysburg
2. Using the Group dropdown menu, navigate to the group you will be applying from and select the group
3. From the Officer Dashboard select Budget (if you are not brought to the Officer Dashboard you are not an officer and will need to ask someone who is to submit the request)
4. Select C4C Mini-Grants from the dropdown menu on the Budget page
5. Click the Create Budget Request button in the top right hand corner
6. Complete the request form and hit submit

If you have any questions about the mini-grant program, please contact C4C@gettysburg.edu.