About 50 students, alumni, and faculty members filed into Roone Arledge Cinema on Monday evening for the inaugural speech in the Columbia College Honorary Lecture Series—a talk titled “Whatever Happened to Civil Disagreement?” by Columbia College Dean Michele Moody-Adams.
The lecture was the first of a series spearheaded by the Columbia College Student Council. While the council intends to institute a student nomination process to decide who will speak in the future, CCSC president Sue Yang, CC ’10, said Moody-Adams was an ideal choice to kick off the council’s initiative. “We are so fortunate and lucky to have such a very renowned philosopher in the field of philosophy to be here as our dean serving in an academic and administrative role, so I think she’s the perfect person to kick off the lecture series,” Yang said.
Many students said they had decided to attend the lecture to see Moody-Adams in action. “I wanted to find out a little bit more about the new dean and I thought that this would be a great way of doing it—I didn’t have a very strong connection with Dean Quigley,” alum Asya Izraelit, CC ’09, said.
Dan Walden, CC ’11, said he came to the event “because I’ve heard Moody-Adams speak before and I’ve spoken with her casually,” adding that he thought “she always has interesting things to say.”
Others were drawn to the event by the evening’s topic. Gavin McGown, CC ’13, said “I think that it’s a complex and deeply relevant discussion which requires a great deal of sensitivity to treat.”
Moody-Adams began the lecture by offering the query, “Is there something about contemporary life that has fundamentally altered the nature and the tone of public discourse?” Moody-Adams described some characteristics of modern public discourse that she argues “may be endangering the health of democratic societies,” which for her include arguments that ignore the “humanity” of the opponent and lack respect.
Moody-Adams also acknowledged the part that colleges and universities have to play in developing healthy discourse. “Colleges and universities can play a role in encouraging students to take up difficult conversations in a constructive way in organizations on campus … and encourage them to have sense of the value of what it is to participate in conversations across disciplines and modes of expertise,” Moody-Adams said.
The lecture was followed by a question and answer session with Moody-Adams, where Walden said he was pleased with her candor. “Her lack of answers, or even in some cases of a coherent opinion on a topic, was very refreshing,” he said.
Walden added, “If the series continues to have this kind of engagement with pertinent issues of the day, I would certainly be interested in more of these.”
McGown agreed that he would consider attending upcoming lectures depending upon who was on the docket. “It depends on who they ask to speak and if they get thoughtful people, especially someone with whom I might disagree, to talk about interesting things. I would absolutely come every time.”
Yang said that, in the future, the lectures will represent the interests of the students in the college. “Because it was a pilot program that we had to put together in three months’ time … we couldn’t go through with the nomination aspect, which is a large component that we wanted to see carried out next year when things are in full swing,” she explained. “I think it’s a key part of it—the nomination piece is important because whoever we are inviting to campus we are kind of conferring an honor and recognizing them for their work and influence from whatever sphere they’re from.”
“Hopefully this will grow into one of the large traditions that we can all be proud of at Columbia,” Yang added.
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