I Miss Talking to Strangers
Dr. Hoffman, Kyle Emile, and Dean John Pelesko join University of Delaware students on the Green (October 2019)
I’m passionate about getting students interested in politics, engaged in their communities, and helping them to communicate across differences. That last one is how I ended up meeting Kyle Emile at a Heterodox Academy conference last June. I saw his “Free Intelligent Conversation” sign and was intrigued. Less than a year later, Kyle has visited our campus at the University of Delaware, our students have created a registered student organization devoted to talking across differences, and it’s now part of my course curriculum! Let me tell you what this has been like.
Since 2015, I have hosted the University of Delaware’s National Agenda Speaker Series. Each fall semester has a different theme and brings speakers — like political insiders, authors, journalists and activists — to campus. These speakers meet with my students in the classroom, then speak at a larger public event to share their insights into current political and social issues facing Americans. Last fall’s theme was “Direction Democracy” and explored where we have been, where we are going, and the state of democracy in America.
My students also engage in team projects, and last year I introduced Free Intelligent Conversation to the mix. I usually have about 4 teams for my 26 students to join, and based on preferences, it’s usually pretty easy to create four evenly sized teams. But something unprecedented happened in 2019; more than half the class wanted to talk to strangers for their project! This surprised me, because when I look around the campus here at UD, I often see people tending to hang around with people who look and dress like them. I didn’t expect my students to actually WANT to walk up to total strangers and engage in a conversation. But that they did.
FreeIC’s mission, a mixture of interpersonal engagement and civil dialogue, is so in line with my teaching in this course. My students are required to read Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind” and to explore the moral foundations of our attitudes and behaviors. In other words, our discussions get deep. FreeIC was a great way to expand on those conversations, and demonstrate how to hold them with people with whom we might disagree.
In October, we brought Kyle Emile directly to the UD campus, where he spoke with the National Agenda class, the student organization “Let’s Talk,” and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, John Pelesko. The president of the university Dennis Assanis and his wife, Eleni, saw what we were doing and came out to participate as well!
In addition to engaging in conversation, my National Agenda students also did some research on what the experience was like. They developed a brief survey for people to take after they engaged in a Free Intelligent Conversation by analyzing 5 questions in common:
WHAT IS YOUR SECRET SAUCE THAT MAKES YOU, YOU?
WHEN YOU THINK OF HOME, WHAT IMMEDIATELY COMES TO MIND?
IF YOU HAD EVERYONE IN THE WORLDS UNDIVIDED ATTENTION FOR 20 MINUTES, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?
WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT YOU THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE MISUNDERSTAND THAT YOU KNOW A LOT ABOUT?
WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU HATE, BUT YOU WISH YOU LOVED? WHY?
They found that for each question, the majority of people thought it was comfortable, fun, and easygoing (see their chart below). The question about what is misunderstood about you had a higher rating of “it was awkward” than the others, while the “secret sauce” and “20 minutes” questions were rated as more intense than the others.
As we find ourselves more and more immersed in a virtual world, I relish in thinking back to just a few months ago, when my students and I would walk around the campus of the University of Delaware and engage with complete strangers. It was so liberating, fun, and insightful. We learned a lot about humanity and the power of communication.
We’re in a different place in April, 2020. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be talking to strangers! In fact, I am working with a professor at a college in Oregon to connect our students virtually and engage in Free Intelligent Conversation. (More on that to come!) This world may look like a different one from what we’re used to right now, but I’m determined to keep encouraging viewpoint diversity, civil dialogue, and just plain old talkin’ to people.
