New Fellowship Prepares Students for Challenging Civic Conversations

The Bowdoin Conversation Fellowship, beginning next semester, is part of a broader initiative inspired by President Safa Zaki to cultivate a campus environment where diverse ideas are shared and debated freely and constructively.

Running from January through April, the fellowship will bring together about thirty students for weekly, facilitated lunch conversations led by Katy Stern, director of institutional inclusion and diversity programs. Participants will receive a stipend from the College after completing all sessions.

"In our hyper-partisan political climate, it can be easy for students to avoid engagement-especially with those they think may not share their views," Stern said.

She added, "I imagine that many of the skills they'll gain will serve them both at Bowdoin and beyond, such as learning to sit with people they agree with and those they don't, while developing greater comfort, the ability to connect, facilitation skills, and the space to think about where they can bring these conversations."

The program incorporates mindfulness training to help students pause and reflect before responding to their peers. "To stop and breathe before you react," Stern explained.

The fellowship is modeled after the Civic Cornerstone Fellowship at the University of Virginia's Karsh Institute of Democracy, which regularly draws hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students. Its founder, Rachel Wahl, gave a talk and led a workshop at Bowdoin last year, and Stern has gone to UVA to observe and learn about their program.

Stern said the upcoming conversations will also help students gain more knowledge about the political landscape from multiple perspectives. "They'll learn from each other what others believe," she said. "And sometimes talking through issues clarifies what you think yourself. This fellowship gives students the space to talk, but also space to stop and reflect."