New project helps students engage in constructive conversation during politically polarizing times

Increasing political polarization, coupled with a loss of experience communicating with peers during the COVID pandemic, has left some college students ill-prepared and unable to engage in civil dialogue. According to experts, many students are afraid to talk politics, fearing condemnation and ostracization from their peers.

A new initiative at Binghamton University hopes to tackle this issue. Through the Civil Dialogue Project, students are introduced to the skills needed to have productive conversations and then practice those skills through different activities. Roughly 1,000 new students have participated in the workshops this fall.

Students first complete online training provided by the Constructive Dialogue Institute that helps students understand why we disagree and why it’s difficult to have constructive conversations when we do. Participants are taught to listen to understand and how to ask questions to learn more, instead of listening to prepare to respond. When students understand one another, it’s easier to make positive connections, said Alison Twang ‘11, MPA ‘13, PhD ‘22, director of the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), who oversees the project.

“A lot of what we focus on in in-person workshops is this idea of curiosity, and how you can be curious about others who might come from a different background or have different beliefs than you do,” Twang said. “When you’re engaging in a conversation, instead of listening to respond, you’re really listening to understand and then asking questions to learn more. That’s one of the key skills that we focus on in the workshop, and it seems like it really resonated a lot with students.”

The training aims to create an environment and culture on campus where students can have respectful and productive political discourse. The objective is also to combat the negative effects of political polarization. Some of these negative effects include strains on students’ social and familial relationships and tension in the classroom. Students are encouraged to practice the skills they learned in the workshops with classmates, friends and family.

“The Civil Dialogue Project exemplifies what is best about Binghamton and our students’ willingness to engage with each other and the toughest issues facing us today,” said Provost Donald Hall. “I’m proud to be at a university that’s proactively working to enable our students and cultivate an environment where they can express themselves fully and feel comfortable doing so. This project has my full support.”

The workshops are conducted by alumni volunteer William Groner ‘77, who developed the pilot program with Trevor Fornara ‘23. Throughout the sessions, Groner highlights and discusses active listening, showing respect, asking curious questions and more. Participants have conversations with each other on certain topics while executing what they learned. They then analyze their conversations with Groner.

“It is a long process, but, if the goal is to create as many positive behavioral conversation techniques as possible to as many people, I think the journey is well worth it,” Groner said.

At the end of each workshop, students complete a survey and share their takeaways. So far, feedback has been extremely positive. Michaelanne Allen, a first-year integrative neuroscience major from Rome, N.Y., said she felt more comfortable engaging in conversation at the end of the workshop.

“The trial conversations in the beginning were tough to break in,” Allen said. “But, when I looked at examples of curious questions that I could be asking and learned how to move the conversation along without accusing people or hurting people’s feelings, it got to a point where there was a nice rhythm in the conversation.”

The effective feedback received from hundreds of student participants, like Allen, was what the University hoped for and why Groner volunteered. Groner, who was a moderator at the time for Braver Angels, a nonprofit organization dedicated to political depolarization, approached the University in spring 2023 with his interests in civil dialogue. Vice President of Student Affairs Brian Rose shared the same interests – giving rise to the project.

“When the 2016 election happened, I saw the polarization of our society,” Groner said. “I wasn’t practicing law at that point, but I was looking to give back and make as big of a difference as possible. And I thought, what a great opportunity to help depolarize in any way I can.”

Rose added, “As soon as I started spit-balling with Bill (Groner), I knew we were hitting on something important. We talked about being in this for the long haul, and how we could scale the idea so it would become part of what it means to attend Binghamton.”

Many changes and improvements have been made to the workshops since spring 2023. To better institutionalize the project, Rose took it to the CCE, where Twang started overseeing it and helped to enhance the project. In fall 2023, the project began targeting students in the Emerging Leaders Program and those enrolled in the First-Year Experience courses.

“This work is important because students can find things that they share in common, that they might not have realized, and can build a stronger understanding of where people are coming from, who may have different views than they do,” Twang said. “For me, as someone who is a civic engagement professional, I strongly believe that we need all voices at the table to strengthen our communities, to strengthen our democracy. And being able to engage in good conversations, even when you disagree, is a really important part of that.”

Twang said that there are plans in place to advance the project even further as 13 faculty are part of a new Civil Dialogue Teaching Fellows, which supports faculty in integrating civil dialogue into their teaching. Furthermore, in spring 2025, a student dialogue ambassador program will launch.

“Those would be students who would receive some additional training, and then they could do some training for their peers, but also be able to facilitate conversations within their communities on campus. We also want to offer more types of training for faculty and staff.”