Reunion Recap and Looking Ahead
Last weekend, the Mac Mods hosted our annual panel at Reunion. Founding member Jim Burho (Class of ‘70), student Matthew Allaire (Class of ‘27), and myself presented our thoughts on why Macalester should continue investing in programs that promote civil discourse and viewpoint diversity. Pres. Rivera was also present and talked about a few of the specific programs Mac is offering to this end.
About 25 alums attended, and the atmosphere in the room was quite positive — many expressed their support for this work. My hope is that those who want to see more of it will consider financially supporting Mac’s Dialogue Across Differences programs.
Other topics discussed included:
Matthew’s work founding a Heterodox Academy student chapter at Mac. This will ensure that students interested in viewpoint diversity have a campus community.
Debates surrounding Mac for Palestine’s demand to end study away programs in Israel, and why it’s good for viewpoint diversity and global citizenship that this demand was rejected.
How to have productive conversations about deep disagreements using tools like Nonviolent Communication.
Minnesota Public Radio’s coverage of Mac’s work with Braver Angels, bringing together Mac students and students at the University of Northwestern — a conservative Christian college in nearby Roseville — for dialogue about politics.
In previous years, we’ve had more young alums and students attending, some of whom asked critical questions and voiced concerns about promoting viewpoint diversity. I was hoping for the same this year; it’s a great opportunity to publicly address common criticisms of our work. But unfortunately that did not happen. Fingers crossed for next year.
Overall, I really enjoyed the positive energy in the room. Thank you Jim, Matthew, Dr. Rivera, and all attendees for your contributions to the conversation!
Looking Ahead
I have a few ideas for what the Mac Mods could work on in the coming months and year that I wanted to share with you all.
Bringing conservative voices to campus. I would love for the Mac Mods to help host an event that brings speakers with diverse views to campus. There are a lot of really interesting conservative and heterodox thinkers out there that I think Mac students simply aren’t aware of — people who write for publications like Persuasion and The Dispatch, or who work for organizations like Heterodox Academy and Braver Angels.
Advocate for institutional neutrality. When a school commits to institutional neutrality, it’s promising to avoid putting out position statements on partisan political issues. These statements put a thumb on the scale of the campus debate and discourage dissenting views. Rivera has expressed some interest in this, and I know that there have been campus conservations on the topic, but Mac has yet to adopt a formal commitment. The Mac Mods could help push for this. Read more here.
Encourage training on civil discourse and free speech for students. Mac should provide training to its students on the importance of viewpoint diversity in a liberal arts education. This could be at orientation (an example orientation program from FIRE is found here) or through some kind of mandatory course. Perhaps the Mac Mods can be a voice in favor of such training.
I’d love to hear from you on what you’re interested in. Leave your thoughts in the comments or shoot me an email (charlie.birge@gmail.com).
Happy summer.