Speaker 1: One of the challenges that I have is, you know,
Speaker 1: I look at the beauty of this community, how well
Speaker 1: it works. But you know, keep in mind that people
Speaker 1: self select to apply to IE House. We are an
Speaker 1: independent nonprofit. We're associated with the university. Rockefeller gifted the
Speaker 1: building to the university, but he also stipulated that the
Speaker 1: organization needs to be outside of the university. People that
Speaker 1: want to be in this environment apply here. In a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, the university set up these affinity houses
Speaker 1: or try to get these tribes to settle into, you know, communities,
Speaker 1: and then they're surprised that these tribes are finding conflict
Speaker 1: and differences with each other because they are creating echo chambers.
Speaker 1: We're the tribe, and we are different, and one of
Speaker 1: the things we have in common is that we want
Speaker 1: to be here. We want to be surrounded by people
Speaker 1: who are different than us. We want to ask questions
Speaker 1: and listen and try to understand.
Speaker 2: One thing I'm really excited to talk with you today
Speaker 2: this enter life about. You know, higher education is is
Speaker 2: such an important point of so many people's lives, and it,
Speaker 2: you know, shapes future generations and shapes kind of how
Speaker 2: folks are approaching the next part of their lives in
Speaker 2: the world. And like even you know, the kids. I
Speaker 2: have a three month old now, so he's not thinking
Speaker 2: about college yet. But like, as we know, we begin
Speaker 2: even like early on to be planning and thinking about,
Speaker 2: you know, what kind of schooling do we want our
Speaker 2: kids to have? And then you know, you know from
Speaker 2: who knows from high school certainly, but even younger people
Speaker 2: are thinking about what college they want to get into
Speaker 2: and how they want to get there. And then when
Speaker 2: you go to college, right, it's this whole experience of
Speaker 2: you know, you're freshman, moving into a dorm for the
Speaker 2: first time, what that can be like in terms of
Speaker 2: new experiences, new friends. If you're an international student, that
Speaker 2: can also totally change the equation also, right, if you're
Speaker 2: if you're totally leaving home for something else. And I
Speaker 2: think that it's it's such an important and magical and
Speaker 2: challenging and dangerous and all these things placed for folks,
Speaker 2: you know, and like, we have such interesting conversations happening
Speaker 2: across the US now in the world around the role
Speaker 2: of higher ed. We're in this crazy space as we know,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four of political polarization seems to be reaching
Speaker 2: some kind of fever pitch in the world, right, And
Speaker 2: you know, controversy is no nothing foreign to college campuses,
Speaker 2: you know, and oftentimes they can be the epicenter of
Speaker 2: these kind of storms sometimes, and you know, I want
Speaker 2: to put that in bucket one and bucket two. Of course,
Speaker 2: as we're approaching an election cycle right here also, and
Speaker 2: that also raises questions around both polarization but also inclusive
Speaker 2: dialogue and communication with people that have different perspectives, right,
Speaker 2: And so I think there is a really important challenge
Speaker 2: that that higher rate is facing around like fostering inclusive
Speaker 2: and safe environments for different kinds of viewpoints, right, And
Speaker 2: it's it's kind of critical. I'm early excited to talk
Speaker 2: with Sean coopfer CEO of International House that you see Berkeley,
Speaker 2: which is a really interesting blend of both a kind
Speaker 2: of independent nonprofit but also connected with the university. And
Speaker 2: the Eye House has been around for you know, nearly
Speaker 2: a century, which I thought was really cool and kind
Speaker 2: of looking and getting a sense of what the organization
Speaker 2: is itself. And so you've seen a lot of challenges
Speaker 2: through Eye House of issues that the US has faced, right.
Speaker 2: There's been issues around wars and civil rights issues and
Speaker 2: you know, geopolitical upheavals and things like that, and so
Speaker 2: we're excited to get your perspective on how we can
Speaker 2: think about this and how do we build sense of
Speaker 2: hope and how we demonstrate that we can heal different
Speaker 2: cultural divides in these kinds of inclusive spaces as part
Speaker 2: of campuses. And so first was they sean great to
Speaker 2: have you. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I really appreciate being here. And
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you and your listeners right on.
Speaker 2: So diving into too this idea is like in this
Speaker 2: world where it seems like we can have these kind
Speaker 2: of social media echo chambers and political tribalism seems to
Speaker 2: be an unfortunate norm. You know, I want to hear
Speaker 2: about your work with like International House and how have
Speaker 2: you kind of begun to set and think about the
Speaker 2: tone and the space and like creating an environment where
Speaker 2: we can have multiple different kind viewpoints coming together not
Speaker 2: just to co exist, but to actually be productive in
Speaker 2: dialogue and communication with each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think to put betting in kind
Speaker 1: of the context of the history of IHOS and this
Speaker 1: is one hundred year old institution, and actually the origin
Speaker 1: story starts at nineteen oh nine. Right to give a
Speaker 1: quick history lesson the lighthouse, A man, twenty six year
Speaker 1: old man Harry Edmonds, was working at the YMCA affiliated
Speaker 1: with Columbia University. So as he's walking down the steps
Speaker 1: one full morning of the Columbia University Library, he passes
Speaker 1: a student and as you do, you say good morning.
Speaker 1: So the student stopped and it kind of sparked a conversation,
Speaker 1: and the student said, from China, I've been here for
Speaker 1: three weeks and you're the first person to talk to me.
Speaker 1: And so Harry was really touched by that interaction and
Speaker 1: went home and told his wife Florence, about you know,
Speaker 1: how isolated, how lonely, you know, the here scholars and
Speaker 1: academics coming literally halfway around the world and being pushed
Speaker 1: off into housing that is in the not most desirable
Speaker 1: places in the city, oftentimes far away from the universities.
Speaker 1: People are not acknowledging them. And this is nineteen oh nine.
Speaker 1: So I always think it's a vision of the Titanic
Speaker 1: movie comes to mind, because that's about the mean this
Speaker 1: was where this was going, whether it's what's happening, and
Speaker 1: so Florence insisted we need to do something. And what
Speaker 1: they did was they started inviting international students into their
Speaker 1: hall for what's called Sunday supper, you know, and I
Speaker 1: sit down, have a meal, have a conversation, go by
Speaker 1: the fire, have a drink, and talk about you know,
Speaker 1: just building relationships, talk about your history, your culture, your country,
Speaker 1: your points of view, you know, what are you studying.
Speaker 1: And from these just simple Sunday suppers of guests in
Speaker 1: their apartment developed this community of folks that wanted to
Speaker 1: one engage with people from around the world. And again,
Speaker 1: nineteen oh nine, people weren't flying on vacation to Europe
Speaker 1: for Asia unless they had the money to do the
Speaker 1: Grand Tour of Europe. The interaction was only their peer
Speaker 1: groups in the cities. And so you know, this, this
Speaker 1: this community of folks that wanted to saw value in
Speaker 1: interacting with people who were different than that, and people
Speaker 1: in New York that wanted to support this initiative and
Speaker 1: saw this what a great way to build lifelong friendships
Speaker 1: and build better inner cultural understanding and more respect. And
Speaker 1: you know, wouldn't the world be a great place if
Speaker 1: we were all connected in this? And so that's how
Speaker 1: we started off John D. Rockefeller as the flaff Abyss
Speaker 1: in New York, and then the Dodge family got involved
Speaker 1: and they built essentially what Harry and Florence's vision was,
Speaker 1: which was this home where they could live together, eat together,
Speaker 1: support each other, and be a center of all of
Speaker 1: this intercultural exchanges. And so the first Eye House opened
Speaker 1: up at nineteen twenty four adjacent Columbia University, is still
Speaker 1: there today. It was such a big hit that Rockefeller
Speaker 1: and Edmunds decided to open one up in Berkeley University, Chicago.
Speaker 1: There's plans for Boston where you're at right, as well
Speaker 1: as Philadelphia. However, you know, nineteen twenty nine depression hits
Speaker 1: and he was only able to complete Boston, and I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: complete Berkeley and Chicago. And so you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: what we do. Since nineteen thirty we've been here at
Speaker 1: the Berkeley campus, the building built by Rockefeller and Edmunds.
Speaker 1: We house currently about six hundred and twenty international and
Speaker 1: domestic residents. This year we just have moving week last week,
Speaker 1: so we have eighty two different nationalities in that cohort
Speaker 1: of six hundred. There's no dominant culture, I think domestic
Speaker 1: students are the biggest population at eighteen percent this year,
Speaker 1: interesting all by China, which I think is about nine
Speaker 1: or ten percent, India, France, and you know, then we
Speaker 1: go to a long list of countries that have a
Speaker 1: few representatives in this entire to meunity. So that's cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Our whole purpose is to you know, to bring people
Speaker 1: together that have that that interaction that was happened in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh nine in the apartment of Barring, Florence, where
Speaker 1: you meet someone new, you listen, you talk, you exchange ideas,
Speaker 1: you try to understand their perspectives better. Oftentimes that's in
Speaker 1: our dining hall. We do room and board here, so
Speaker 1: they live here and they eat here, and so that's
Speaker 1: how we facilitate these exchanges. And it's it's really is incredible.
Speaker 1: You know, you talked about the you know, the conflict
Speaker 1: on campuses recently, and Berkeley was not immune for that.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly a lot of these you know, we
Speaker 1: haven't incammed here and we have protests here, not to
Speaker 1: the extent of Columbia or UCLA or Washington, but it
Speaker 1: didn't come into the house. People saw each other as
Speaker 1: part of the same community, and it wasn't tribal, right,
Speaker 1: The tribe is us, all of us, yeah, versus you know,
Speaker 1: the campus. The conflict is between tribes, like minded people
Speaker 1: against other like minded people, and then the friction that
Speaker 1: happens when you're in a building with six hundred people
Speaker 1: who all think differently than you. You're vulnerable, right. No
Speaker 1: one wants to stand up on a soapbox and say
Speaker 1: this is the way we all should think, because no,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get much of a group behind
Speaker 1: you supporting you. What what you do get is people who
Speaker 1: are vulnerable. And we'll talk about you know, here's my
Speaker 1: point of view, but I want to understand where you're
Speaker 1: coming from. Why is that? And that's really healthy? You know,
Speaker 1: there's civility in this house. There is discussion, there is debate,
Speaker 1: but there's not violence. There's not you know, treating people meanly.
Speaker 1: It's trying to understand and how do we find common
Speaker 1: ground to move forward. That's the all reason we existed.
Speaker 1: We've been here since nineteen you know, nineteen thirty, and
Speaker 1: this isn't the first, you know time we've been involved
Speaker 1: in conflict. Yeah, you know, you can go back through
Speaker 1: history with eye house here at Berkeley alone. You know,
Speaker 1: we were part of the free speech movement, we were
Speaker 1: part of the civil rights movement. We're here during World
Speaker 1: War two, during Japanese and tournament protecting Jopanese citizen and
Speaker 1: our our law students were writing places to get them out.
Speaker 1: So you know, we've been very active in all of
Speaker 1: these conflicts, but hopefully in a in a in a
Speaker 1: productive way. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating, and I mean as an anthropologist that this
Speaker 2: is you know, I really like this because it's you know,
Speaker 2: on the one hand, the I think incredible value of
Speaker 2: oftentimes going to uh, you know, college or university for
Speaker 2: many people because the first time they leave home, you know,
Speaker 2: in a big sense, and then having kind of an
Speaker 2: intentional place where we know folks of difference are coming
Speaker 2: together and we're not kind of providing that space for
Speaker 2: them to like live in, you know and break bread
Speaker 2: and kind of room and eat and live together. Is
Speaker 2: you know, there's there's like a dorm which you can
Speaker 2: typically think about, right, but then it sounds like this
Speaker 2: is like my house is kind of taking a bit
Speaker 2: of a next step there in like recognizing the intentional
Speaker 2: international character of so many universities, especially you know, if
Speaker 2: we're talking to the top two universities like Berkeley and
Speaker 2: Columbia and Chicago too, we orre geny folks from all
Speaker 2: over the world, right that want to come here, And
Speaker 2: so it's like, how do we provide that space? But
Speaker 2: you know, I also really appreciate the context you shared
Speaker 2: there in terms of that, and I want to think
Speaker 2: about this with you. Is that obviously, you know, we
Speaker 2: can see politics in political opinions and things, you know,
Speaker 2: find their way to college campus as we're sitting here too,
Speaker 2: which we know is quite common. But then also there's
Speaker 2: this idea of the human that I'm living with or
Speaker 2: near or next door my neighbor, right, And there's always
Speaker 2: this kind of funny point that whenever we think about polarization,
Speaker 2: it oftentimes is this kind of straw man of like
Speaker 2: the enemy, which we don't. We tend to dehumanize, right,
Speaker 2: we don't kind of think about them as as another person.
Speaker 2: But so it sounds like part of the strategy here
Speaker 2: is to kind of foreground the human. I guess, so
Speaker 2: I thought, there's a person that's that's your neighbor, that's
Speaker 2: your colleague, that's that they're having dinner with you.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I fight out of percent and you know,
Speaker 1: just to you know, one of the challenges that I
Speaker 1: have is, you know, I look at the beauty of
Speaker 1: this community, how well it works. But you know, keep
Speaker 1: in mind that people self select to apply to Ie House.
Speaker 1: We are an independent nonprofit. We're associated with the university.
Speaker 1: Rockefeller gift the building to the university, but he also
Speaker 1: stipulated that the organization needs to be outside of the university.
Speaker 1: There's a great story about why that happened and how
Speaker 1: we desegregated Berkeley as a result. You know, people, people
Speaker 1: that want to be in this environment apply here, whereas
Speaker 1: you go to a university dorm. People just need place
Speaker 1: to live, and they're not necessarily selecting a place to
Speaker 1: live because they want to be surrounded by different people.
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, the university set up these
Speaker 1: affinity houses or try to get these tribes to settle into,
Speaker 1: you know, communities, and then they're surprised that these tribes
Speaker 1: are finding conflict and differences with each other because they
Speaker 1: are creating echo chambers and these and these tribes were us.
Speaker 1: We're the tribe, and we are different, and one of
Speaker 1: the things we have in common is that we want
Speaker 1: to be here. We want to be surrounded by people
Speaker 1: who are different than us. We want to ask questions
Speaker 1: and us in and try to understand, and not always
Speaker 1: the general dorms on campus. That's the environment. And so
Speaker 1: you know, this is something unique within the campus communities
Speaker 1: because we want to get along here. They want to
Speaker 1: they want to be challenged right in the way that
Speaker 1: they're thinking. I think you're one hundred percent right there.
Speaker 1: When you look, it's easy to call someone a label
Speaker 1: and hate them, right, Let's say, or this person represents
Speaker 1: all of these people, or they this person represents these
Speaker 1: policies or that are that I'm against, and therefore I'm
Speaker 1: against that person. When you make it a person, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's much more difficult to you know, when you
Speaker 1: have a conversation over dinner, you say, well, they carry
Speaker 1: that label, but they're not necessarily supporting the point of
Speaker 1: view that I that I kind of blanket across all
Speaker 1: of that group. They're actually more reasonable first and once
Speaker 1: you talk to them and you know they they seem
Speaker 1: to be more empathetic towards each other. And that's when
Speaker 1: you personalize these These issues. Person to person issues are
Speaker 1: never as bad as it is government or government or
Speaker 1: country to country or religion. To get religion, you know,
Speaker 1: then it's just white you know, it's white washing everything
Speaker 1: with the same point of view, when even within those
Speaker 1: communities there's a lot of diversity and thought and opinion
Speaker 1: and beliefs. And when you get down to it, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of majority of folks are reasonable, want to
Speaker 1: find common ground, want to find peaceful solutions, and just
Speaker 1: want safety, security and a pathway to a better life
Speaker 1: for themselves and their and their family and their children.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's where we get down. I think
Speaker 1: the special sauce here is that these are personal relationships.
Speaker 1: Just really quickly, there's in our whole of history, there's
Speaker 1: a testimonial from one of our students who was a
Speaker 1: white South African that was living here during the apartheid period,
Speaker 1: and we also had a black South African in the
Speaker 1: house at the same time, and they write this beautiful
Speaker 1: testimonial that you know, back home, they would not communicate
Speaker 1: with each other, they would never have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: interact with each other, They wouldn't want to interact with
Speaker 1: each other. They would just stand across the street and
Speaker 1: you know and not have any interactions. However, in this house,
Speaker 1: they move in, they meet, they have a coffee, they
Speaker 1: start having conversations. They end up becoming friends. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is beautiful testimonial that once it became a person
Speaker 1: to person and you start opening up and sharing and
Speaker 1: trying to build understanding, a lot of this conflict goes
Speaker 1: away if there's you know, as you imagine one hundred years,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stories like that were you know,
Speaker 1: after World War Two there was Japanese, Germans and Americans
Speaker 1: and British in this house try to kill each other
Speaker 1: a couple of years before, and now they're here together, right,
Speaker 1: and all of that goes away. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it all starts with interpersonal connections and communication and listening
Speaker 1: and trying to understand and not labeling, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: entire groups of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even like the the idea too that when
Speaker 2: we pause and it kind of put the human back
Speaker 2: in the frame. We we also kind of see what
Speaker 2: we share, right, I mean, it reminds me of the
Speaker 2: you know, the they probably off too often quoted, but
Speaker 2: still fun idea you know during World War two at
Speaker 2: Christmas when when you know, the access in the Allies
Speaker 2: came out of the trenches to sing Christmas songs and
Speaker 2: play play football together, you know, and it's like this
Speaker 2: really interesting idea that like, okay, yeah, we are literally fighting,
Speaker 2: but then turns out we actually do have shared in
Speaker 2: this case, shared traditions, taryed religious connections, right, and shared holidays,
Speaker 2: and like let's actually come together for that. And in
Speaker 2: like in that moment, you can see if people can
Speaker 2: come together. And then it's like it reminds us then
Speaker 2: why would we not be able to do this in
Speaker 2: a in a home that we're sharing, or in a
Speaker 2: space that were that were together too, And it's kind
Speaker 2: of a reminder that we can do it, and it's
Speaker 2: it's we're better when we.
Speaker 1: Do it right. Well, we we can do it. We
Speaker 1: have done it over you know, thousands of years of history.
Speaker 1: You know, people that we're against each other for various
Speaker 1: reasons have found ways to come together and be peaceful.
Speaker 1: You know, just looking at relative history and world wars,
Speaker 1: you know, can tell me that in nineteen forty three
Speaker 1: we saw you know, people thought of Germany as a
Speaker 1: place so we would be you know, going on vacation
Speaker 1: and we luck German people, or the Japanese or you know,
Speaker 1: any of the other you know, so it can change,
Speaker 1: you know, views can change the entire countries and cultures
Speaker 1: can find peaceful ways to move forward. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're all about here, is trying to teach that to
Speaker 1: six hundred and twenty four residents every year as we
Speaker 1: launched the mounts, like, hey, you know, we can there's
Speaker 1: other ways besides shouting down, canseling and threatening other people
Speaker 1: who disagree with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then that's such an important point too, because
Speaker 2: we are you know, on the one hand, seeing at
Speaker 2: the current moment that we're talking now this is you know,
Speaker 2: late August and twenty twenty four, but in general, like
Speaker 2: we saw like the rise in you know, around COVID
Speaker 2: and for a few years like this rise you know,
Speaker 2: from from me to move it into cancel culture. And
Speaker 2: now there's been a bit of a kind of a
Speaker 2: pushback in terms of saying, well, it's not we don't
Speaker 2: need to cancel everybody, and we need to be kind
Speaker 2: of careful about how we're deploying, you know, on the
Speaker 2: one hand, weapons of retribution, but then at the same time,
Speaker 2: like what is justice sexually? How do we actually actually
Speaker 2: bring justice forward, you know, and like the interesting challenge
Speaker 2: points that you know, on the one hand, like feel
Speaker 2: new in terms of how we're we're reckoning with and
Speaker 2: we need to reckon with things like like sexual harassment
Speaker 2: and sexual violence, especially in college campuses. Sure, and like
Speaker 2: how it's gone through Hollywood and like you know, how
Speaker 2: how the entire process through me too, and how that
Speaker 2: it's like reverberted through society. But then also things around
Speaker 2: George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter, and there's notions
Speaker 2: of like how do we reckon with the social needs
Speaker 2: of today? But then kind of as we're talking here too,
Speaker 2: like there's I think this really interesting and important history
Speaker 2: to remember of like how we've seen other kinds of conflict,
Speaker 2: uh work, like working through conflicts in historical moments in
Speaker 2: the US that we're talking about here too, and like
Speaker 2: even thinking about how at at Eye House itself as
Speaker 2: as a place, like thinking about that as a character
Speaker 2: in a story, right, and the things that Iye House
Speaker 2: has seen in terms of conflicts and then resolutions and
Speaker 2: how folks have kind of worked through them together. I
Speaker 2: think it's really really interesting and obviously one of the
Speaker 2: you know, interesting pieces about this too, is like the
Speaker 2: you know, coming together of so many international students also, right,
Speaker 2: so we're having a lot of cultural mixing that that
Speaker 2: takes place too, And I think that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of curious to think about about that idea
Speaker 2: of like, you know, I don't know strategies or things
Speaker 2: that you found that are effective for like helping create
Speaker 2: those environments where we can we can have multiple kind
Speaker 2: of cultures come together and have space. Obviously still be
Speaker 2: some mistakes and some things that people kind of say, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, either shouldn't say that it, don't call me
Speaker 2: this or you know, not in a read way, but
Speaker 2: just like oh I didn't realize I shouldn't say X
Speaker 2: thing you know about somebody. But like, however, you find
Speaker 2: kind of strategies to help mitigate and help folks kind
Speaker 2: of come together around you know, we're bringing different cultures
Speaker 2: together in ways that can kind of work work together
Speaker 2: and kind of figure things out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they go. No. I think one thing is is
Speaker 1: because we're such an old and established institution, it's having
Speaker 1: principles and core values that you know are consistent. Obviously
Speaker 1: in this house, we have to be civil you know
Speaker 1: this is these are close courters. I can tell you
Speaker 1: when they designed, you know, the architects in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: didn't you know, create these large living spaces for the students.
Speaker 1: These are very modest and you know all of the
Speaker 1: undergrads have to double up, they share a room with
Speaker 1: someone from a different country. By design, they forced an interaction.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, we didn't have an understanding of
Speaker 1: you know, you we all have to be civil in
Speaker 1: this environment. You know, things would fall apart rather quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you know that's the first just nostalgect like. Look,
Speaker 1: we we understand, we're all and we can disagree and
Speaker 1: I may not agree with you, and that may make
Speaker 1: me frustrated or angry. However, I'm still going to be
Speaker 1: civil about it. And and that's where it needs to start.
Speaker 1: And I you know, it seems civility is lost in
Speaker 1: a lot of these these the current situation that you know,
Speaker 1: you hear even things that come out of people's mouths,
Speaker 1: you know, in debates, our leaders, our role models. It's
Speaker 1: just not a civil you know, it's not not civil anymore.
Speaker 1: We're not treating people kindly with respect. It's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's the whole other issue. And I think it's just
Speaker 1: you know, we also have to operate under free speech.
Speaker 1: You know, we have to allow every of those eighty
Speaker 1: two nationalities and all of those six hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: four people. But you know, we talked, we tend to
Speaker 1: fall back and talk about diversity because they have different passports.
Speaker 1: But the reality is economic diversity, gender diversity, I mean
Speaker 1: area of interest, and they're studying on campus diversity. You know,
Speaker 1: they're on a law, business, and engineering students. I've got,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the most obscure majors on campus
Speaker 1: in this house. For a reason. Yeah, because I want
Speaker 1: those people here. I want them to you know, what
Speaker 1: they bring is so valuable to us, to just make
Speaker 1: everything so complicated and diverts wonderful. But you can't have
Speaker 1: that if you don't if people don't feel comfortable in
Speaker 1: expressing their opinions. So you have to allow free speech
Speaker 1: in this house and understand that, you know, there's things
Speaker 1: people are going to say that you may not agree with,
Speaker 1: well that you're definitely not going to agree with. You know,
Speaker 1: welcome to a diverse world, like you know, sit down
Speaker 1: and talk to that person try to understand why they
Speaker 1: have that opinion coming up. You know, I feel there's
Speaker 1: a there's a certain level of uncomfortableness I have when
Speaker 1: we start talking about hate speech or safe spaces, because
Speaker 1: there seem to be you know, whenever you come up
Speaker 1: with policies or roles to create that, it seems like
Speaker 1: the only way to create those spaces are by excluding
Speaker 1: the certain points. And yeah, I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: that's what we're about. Because what you start excluding people,
Speaker 1: you're never going to understand that, You're never gonna have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to like, well, it's engaged in the conversation.
Speaker 1: I am baffled by why you feel this way. I
Speaker 1: really want to understand how are you raised? What is
Speaker 1: it about your culture that led you to come to this?
Speaker 1: I want to understand, you know, and that may not
Speaker 1: be a safe space for everybody, so we can find
Speaker 1: what a safe space is. Good question. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very ethnocentric, right, whatever you create it. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I say, blow out the gates and just let everyone
Speaker 1: have free speech under these rules of civility and listening
Speaker 1: to understand and we're not trying to indoctrinate people We're
Speaker 1: not trying to convince people. We're just trying to understand people.
Speaker 1: If we understand each other, we have a chance they
Speaker 1: move forward and find a way to coexist that doesn't
Speaker 1: include me canceling you, eliminating you, or trying to get
Speaker 1: that thought erased from history. Yeah, you know. And so
Speaker 1: I think those are the the tenants, the principles that
Speaker 1: you have to have to keep this, the magic that
Speaker 1: happens here happening, all of these things. You feel, I
Speaker 1: feel like you just we've just lot in society. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think social media or or the media at
Speaker 1: large has been helping us to develop diverse perspectives or
Speaker 1: deeper understanding of people who disagree. Yeah, can't find a
Speaker 1: new you know, tell me a news channel that is neutral,
Speaker 1: It will give you both sides of the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure those are there.
Speaker 1: Can tell me the algorithm that is feeding me content
Speaker 1: that I normally wouldn't find. It might help me understand
Speaker 1: an issue better. Well, now they're all focused on taking
Speaker 1: you down a rabbit hole and surrounding you by one
Speaker 1: point of view, keeps your eyes on the screen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that's you know, that's part of the
Speaker 1: situation we find ourselves is we need to find ways
Speaker 1: to allow people to open their mind to different of opinion.
Speaker 1: And again, not with the intent to change anybody's mind.
Speaker 1: That's with the intent to understand, No, just to personalize
Speaker 1: a little bit more, you know, and we come up
Speaker 1: with all these late crazy labels now you know, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and then just.
Speaker 2: I know it is. It's interesting because it's like, on
Speaker 2: the one hand, you know, it's it's like, uh, I'm
Speaker 2: not there yet. But like when you have a you know,
Speaker 2: two year old that's asking why after every single question,
Speaker 2: you know, like you get this, you know at some point,
Speaker 2: you know, you can see these exasperated parents like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, at some point and say either just because
Speaker 2: I said so, or because that's the way it is,
Speaker 2: or something right there, there's always a to be And
Speaker 2: I'm like, I want I don't want to call it
Speaker 2: a cop out answer, because I will ask me again
Speaker 2: in a year and a half. I'm like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: now I see why they say that. But but in general,
Speaker 2: like this, the desire to know why is not doesn't
Speaker 2: ever come from a place of malice, right, It's like,
Speaker 2: this is this true desire to understand, right, And you know,
Speaker 2: in the the it seems in general that to the
Speaker 2: two times that we like really allow in contemporary US society,
Speaker 2: like that we really allow that and push for that
Speaker 2: is when their kids arely two or three, and then
Speaker 2: in college, which is weird, like we kind of like
Speaker 2: dropped the middle of that in terms of like really
Speaker 2: kind of talk especially for the liberalist universities, right, but
Speaker 2: like pushing this idea of like general genuine inquiry of
Speaker 2: like I'm interested in X y Z, not just learning
Speaker 2: a bunch of facts, you know, and and you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to paint too broad up a picture
Speaker 2: of US education system, but that there's a lot of
Speaker 2: challenges about like on the one hand too in terms
Speaker 2: of you know, teaching to the test for a lot
Speaker 2: of things like this and kind of like making sure
Speaker 2: that kids get that content versus like how to either
Speaker 2: think critically or like ask questions in a deeper way
Speaker 2: and that you know, I'm glad that we see higher
Speaker 2: education institutions doing that, but it is interesting that like
Speaker 2: we don't see it getting kind of pushed earlier, and
Speaker 2: like and if we do see it, it like gets pushed
Speaker 2: into a space of privilege in terms of for AP classes, right,
Speaker 2: like advanced placement or like honors, like that's where you
Speaker 2: take a humanities or artistory class. And it's like that
Speaker 2: it's this this funny point. So I agree with you
Speaker 2: too in terms of like that we there's the media
Speaker 2: side that kind of pushes uh be an angle and
Speaker 2: that I think that has a you know, a ton
Speaker 2: of challenge based. Anything that's premised on advertising for revenue
Speaker 2: is going to do that, right, And that's exactly those
Speaker 2: algorithms because they're like funneling your attention into a certain
Speaker 2: space because then they're going to either get you to
Speaker 2: do something often buy something, you know, or pay for
Speaker 2: something in some level. And it's the other side that
Speaker 2: we have education kind of not pushing too much in
Speaker 2: terms of like actually having more genuine critical thinking skill sets,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes until we get into university. And so
Speaker 2: this this interesting piece where it's like I've appreciated seeing
Speaker 2: so on the media side, like I've appreciated finding there's
Speaker 2: like there's a couple of apps I talked to. Alex
Speaker 2: Finger's the CEO of a company, a media company called
Speaker 2: other Web, which it is a basically nutrition labels for
Speaker 2: news media, and so you can look at it and
Speaker 2: see does it what kind of speech does it have?
Speaker 2: Like would it be inflammatory, would it be kind of neutral?
Speaker 2: Does it like so basically understanding like is it fact checked?
Speaker 2: How has it been fact checked? And so this interesting
Speaker 2: idea of like letting you understand a bit more in
Speaker 2: terms of when you're consuming content, Like he's like the
Speaker 2: same with food, like you should want to know what's
Speaker 2: in that serial? I want to know. It's like how
Speaker 2: my articles are getting made also, and so it doesn't
Speaker 2: write its own pieces, at least not right now, but
Speaker 2: it's like looks at you know, multiple sides of if
Speaker 2: you get like a piece or a story that like
Speaker 2: you might be written about in Fox News and CNN
Speaker 2: and BBC or whatever, kind of seeing like how is
Speaker 2: it talked about in slightly different ways? Which is interesting
Speaker 2: and all sides. Is another organization that does this where
Speaker 2: they kind of say, how is an issue being covered
Speaker 2: on right, left and center? But but even that point,
Speaker 2: like we expect there to be a right left and
Speaker 2: center split right and like the thing we're talking about
Speaker 2: polarization up top two in we're we're expecting to kind
Speaker 2: of say, okay, well, I'm gonna I have to be
Speaker 2: in one of these buckets, you know, versus like all
Speaker 2: of us are actually pretty much a spectrum of a
Speaker 2: lot of things, right, and like rarely we say this
Speaker 2: is the one thing that I am. And so it's
Speaker 2: interesting to kind of think about how we can help
Speaker 2: foster that idea, like the genuine curiosity and the humanity
Speaker 2: of someone in a place like I house that is
Speaker 2: recognizing that, Like we're here at you know, at Berkeley
Speaker 2: and at the Institute of Higher Education trying to help
Speaker 2: us think more critically oftentimes at least at least if
Speaker 2: I have to take that. You know that anthro on
Speaker 2: one class is one of my freshman requirements, right, you know?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: And also then like what does that mean to have
Speaker 2: it in a space like a higher education institution that
Speaker 2: often is a place where we see different views come together,
Speaker 2: like for some for some people, some kids for the
Speaker 2: first time, right, you know, they're saying up top as well.
Speaker 2: So I think it's really interesting space. And I agree,
Speaker 2: it's like civility is something that we see missing an
Speaker 2: often place. So I guess how do you think about
Speaker 2: that in terms of like we can help instill both civility,
Speaker 2: and like, so I guess one question is like how
Speaker 2: long do the folks stay? Are they there for one
Speaker 2: year or two years?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: And then because I'm kind of think about how we
Speaker 2: how do we push them forward and say keep keep
Speaker 2: keep keep with that civility, Like, how do you think
Speaker 2: about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, so residents stay here. They can stay from
Speaker 1: one semester, they can stay up to four years. And
Speaker 1: so we okay, HD studentstead of seemed to they've been
Speaker 1: here longer than I've been here. So you know, they
Speaker 1: can stay for for quite a while. I think on
Speaker 1: average they're slightly more than a year and a half
Speaker 1: in total that they stay here. So they have a
Speaker 1: good experience, a lengthy experience or exposure to this environment.
Speaker 1: And I can tell you just we have over one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand alumni that have come out of just I House,
Speaker 1: Berkeley over the years, and this experience stays with them
Speaker 1: their entire life. We had alumni reunion a few weekends ago,
Speaker 1: and I was speaking to one of our alumni. Was
Speaker 1: here in the fifties, and you know, here for one
Speaker 1: year nineteen fifty and you think about, you know, how
Speaker 1: the world has changed in nineteen fifty and how an
Speaker 1: individual's life, you know, come graduating from college, the ups
Speaker 1: and downs and changes in your career, relationships, children, grandchildren,
Speaker 1: births and deaths, and all of these things that you've
Speaker 1: been through in your life. And you know, they come
Speaker 1: back for that one experience they had for one year
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty break went back here, and they're so mostly
Speaker 1: connected to do what happens within this house. And you know,
Speaker 1: part of our mission is you know, building lifelong friendships,
Speaker 1: and they have lifelong friendships. All of these people that
Speaker 1: you know come together in this this special community and
Speaker 1: disperse are still connected decades later. So there is a
Speaker 1: really special and positive that comes out of this mixing
Speaker 1: of people. And and you know, and talking to people
Speaker 1: who you disagree with, it ends up you know, these
Speaker 1: may be your friends for lives. Even though you know that,
Speaker 1: I mean end of this place. You may just point
Speaker 1: at your banker and say I hate that person. You
Speaker 1: live with them and you you know, have a drink
Speaker 1: with them and you you know, do all the social
Speaker 1: things that we do, or have dinner upstairs with them,
Speaker 1: and you realize, well, this is a great person that
Speaker 1: there's only one sliver of things that we disagree on,
Speaker 1: but we can get past that. So it's it's the
Speaker 1: you know, and there's so much unpack with what you
Speaker 1: just said too, as you were talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the whether or not we're trying to you know, teach
Speaker 1: to tests in education, whether we're trying to teach you know,
Speaker 1: critical thinking and education. You know, I think that's that's
Speaker 1: where we start, is we're trying to understand what do
Speaker 1: we try to do with education, whether it's hey through
Speaker 1: twelve or higher end. What what is the purpose of
Speaker 1: all of this? You know, I spent fourteen years of
Speaker 1: my life in China in education, higher education. My wife
Speaker 1: is Chinese. My kids are ten and twelve, so they're
Speaker 1: still very used to asking why, yeah, that question about
Speaker 1: university and college. You know, you start thinking about it
Speaker 1: when they're three months old, but you're continually thinking about
Speaker 1: it build for another eighteen years. But it's quite different.
Speaker 1: You know, it's me a year to really understand that
Speaker 1: the you know, the objectives of a Chinese education system
Speaker 1: are quite different than what I went through in the
Speaker 1: United States, and uh, you know, where we were focused
Speaker 1: a lot on, at least when I went through school,
Speaker 1: really a lot about critical thinking and asking questions and
Speaker 1: challenging the status. Oh where in China it was more
Speaker 1: rote learning. It was you know, you have this this
Speaker 1: this Galcow test. At the end, it's going to determine
Speaker 1: whether you go to a top university and middle level
Speaker 1: university or you going to go get a job. And
Speaker 1: how you do on that test on that one day determines,
Speaker 1: you know, the trajectory of your life, not just you
Speaker 1: but your family. That's pressure. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure to do well on one test. And so of
Speaker 1: course that system is going to be supporting outcomes of
Speaker 1: that test at the end. So it is a lot
Speaker 1: of rote learning. It is, you know, teaching you to
Speaker 1: to be very strong in in process and understanding concepts.
Speaker 1: But where where I found they were Where the US
Speaker 1: students were week generally weak in math and science is
Speaker 1: but good at asking questions and challenging people, you know,
Speaker 1: in China was quite opposite. They were very good about,
Speaker 1: you know, figuring out how to how to get things
Speaker 1: done in science and math and how to answer questions.
Speaker 1: They weren't it on was questioning why or you know,
Speaker 1: coming up with another opinion on their own. Oh, you know,
Speaker 1: you look at the education system they were they were
Speaker 1: designed and set up to do different things, and so
Speaker 1: you have to start off like what is what are
Speaker 1: we trying to do in higher education? What are we
Speaker 1: trying to do in universities? Is it? You know, to
Speaker 1: liberal arts is probably different than if you come Berkeley,
Speaker 1: you know, the business school, the engineering schools. It's teaching
Speaker 1: you knowledge that's going to help you, you know, get
Speaker 1: into uh great, great positions in jobs in industry and
Speaker 1: lead there. So it's it's you know, where do we start.
Speaker 1: I come from the opinion of what what works here
Speaker 1: at I House is that you know, we're not trying
Speaker 1: to teach anyone what to think. You know, we're we're
Speaker 1: not indoctrinating anybody. And you know, if if that's your
Speaker 1: goal in kindergarten and you know K through twelve is
Speaker 1: to indoctrinate them to all believe in what way? Then yeah,
Speaker 1: thinking goes out the window and there's going to be
Speaker 1: you're teaching people that there's one way to think and
Speaker 1: everything else is wrong. And I you know, you're an anthropologist,
Speaker 1: so you know this much better than I would go
Speaker 1: back in history and the great societies, like you know
Speaker 1: which great societies were built on narrow point of view.
Speaker 1: Todd to everybody and everything else was wrong. That's usually
Speaker 1: when they start to decline. He's like, when you start
Speaker 1: eliminating saying, we don't like what these people are saying,
Speaker 1: therefore we need to eliminate it. That doesn't kill fought right.
Speaker 1: You can kill people, but you can't kill thoughts or ideas.
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I'm sure that's been several movies. I certainly
Speaker 1: not my quote great line. Yeah, yeah, you know, but
Speaker 1: you know, as I look back at my memory of
Speaker 1: history is the great societies were built on discussion, debate,
Speaker 1: the ability understanding, not out of fear that someone has
Speaker 1: an idea that's different than mine and they may be right,
Speaker 1: so I eliminate that right. So yeah, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we're kind of in this path now where we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to get k through twelve to being doctrinating
Speaker 1: people versus giving them this information and teaching them how
Speaker 1: to look at things critically and to ask the right
Speaker 1: questions and and and not bet actually arrogant where they
Speaker 1: I'm right, everyone else is wrong, And you're not going
Speaker 1: to move me off my position because I know I'm right,
Speaker 1: I'm smart of the right. It's like wait, wait, hold on, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's you know that. And there's been there's
Speaker 1: been research done. There was a report out of Eye House,
Speaker 1: New York. They just an impact report they just did
Speaker 1: and they surveyed a lot of their alumni and looked at, uh,
Speaker 1: looked at some qualities of our Eye House alumni versus
Speaker 1: benchmarking them. And yeah, they're as you would imagine. They're
Speaker 1: more central in their political views and more centrists. They're
Speaker 1: less you'll actually arrogant. They recognize that they know what
Speaker 1: they know, but they also know they know a lot.
Speaker 1: They don't know everything, and they're willing to listen and
Speaker 1: learn and trying to understand things and continually, you know,
Speaker 1: grow their ideas and to grow their understanding. But they
Speaker 1: give more in charity, they give more time to the community.
Speaker 1: I mean, just a lot of benefits that come from
Speaker 1: this environment that I think, are you know, things we
Speaker 1: want to encourage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, totally. That sounds great And I agree where
Speaker 2: it's like when we are able to foster those spaces
Speaker 2: of kind of intentional bringing together of difference and we
Speaker 2: have a ground rule or kind of a first principle
Speaker 2: of civility, right, It's such an important piece, you know.
Speaker 2: And on the one hand, I think like there are
Speaker 2: natural questions that we would kind of point towards critical
Speaker 2: thinking of it, just like oh, why does the person
Speaker 2: have that practice or that the way they're cooking that
Speaker 2: food smells weird? And like that may lead to series
Speaker 2: of questions of how do we produce food, you know,
Speaker 2: and wider ingredients, like why then kind of saying am
Speaker 2: I smell weird? But then I'm saying, well, why am
Speaker 2: I saying that's weird? Like maybe they think what eating
Speaker 2: smells weird? Right, and kind of this kind of reflection.
Speaker 1: Well, having living overseas, I can tell you, well, you
Speaker 1: think is weird, someone thinks as delicious. Well you think delicious,
Speaker 1: someone else thinks is weird? Right, you know, And and
Speaker 1: that's you know, you hate to simplify it too much,
Speaker 1: but ultimately there's a reason there's thirty one flavors at
Speaker 1: Basket Robin, a lot of people with a lot of
Speaker 1: different tastes. And when you think about you know, you
Speaker 1: expand that, Well, why we just talking about ice cream?
Speaker 1: You can talk about food, you can talk about political views,
Speaker 1: you can talk about social views and value systems. Is
Speaker 1: that there's a whole It isn't polarized. It is a
Speaker 1: you know, a whole continuum of differences across the board.
Speaker 1: And I don't even think it's women or where it's left,
Speaker 1: right or rich and more. Is that it is this this,
Speaker 1: this beautiful like bubble of folks that I feel and
Speaker 1: think different ways. And when you see them that way,
Speaker 1: it's it's easy to understand that. You know that there's
Speaker 1: a luck going on in the world that I are
Speaker 1: not that are different than me, and I'm comfortable with
Speaker 1: It's okay, Yeah, I'm like everybody else. I got the
Speaker 1: difference of opinion, you know, just like everyone else has
Speaker 1: a different being and doesn't mean someone has to be right.
Speaker 1: We can all, you know, we can all have different
Speaker 1: views and and still be right. Yeah. True.
Speaker 2: It makes me think that. The earlier this year, I
Speaker 2: was talking with Byron Reese. He's a futurist thinker writer,
Speaker 2: and he wrote, Uh, He's had a lot of work
Speaker 2: on AI and kind of the changes in technology, but
Speaker 2: his latest book was this. I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was a left or right turn or upside down turn,
Speaker 2: and it's some weird turn, but it it was on
Speaker 2: like the hypothesis that humanity is actually a super organism.
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to ask you to say if
Speaker 2: you think that is the case or not, but like,
Speaker 2: but the idea in terms of like how we operate
Speaker 2: at scale now as humans. You know, as a city
Speaker 2: itself cannot function like and you can't pull it apart
Speaker 2: and have like just the different system work by itself.
Speaker 2: But we can actually do things at these crazy scales now.
Speaker 2: And it's it's interesting to think about this idea that
Speaker 2: why do we see systems? And actually I'll relate this
Speaker 2: to like the the I think the good point you're
Speaker 2: making too in terms of what we see great civilizations
Speaker 2: and societies doing, like by bringing in essentially diversity, right,
Speaker 2: by bringing in different perspectives and ways of approaching things
Speaker 2: like in the same way of evolution. What makes evolution
Speaker 2: work better and what might make something bigger work better,
Speaker 2: is that it has multiple inputs that are different, right,
Speaker 2: and so it tries a bunch of things out. Evolution
Speaker 2: tries a bunch of stuff out right, and then some
Speaker 2: things don't stay and some things do stay, right, And
Speaker 2: that's why we have appulsable thumbs, you know, and it
Speaker 2: tastes for sugar.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like this these interesting ideas to kind of think
Speaker 2: about something like how we create these intentional microcosms, like
Speaker 2: with with a group of eighty six nations in my
Speaker 2: house is a one excellent experiment of diversity. But then
Speaker 2: also this is pointing towards this idea that like we
Speaker 2: can do more, and we as a as a species,
Speaker 2: we're kind of weird of this, but we're able to
Speaker 2: do more when we scale up by bringing a bunch
Speaker 2: of difference together. Right, It's not about having like just
Speaker 2: one perspective, and from evolutionary perspective, that's sup dangerous. It's
Speaker 2: like if you only grow one kind of crop and
Speaker 2: you get a bug or the season goes bad, you
Speaker 2: lose everything. But if you have three or four or
Speaker 2: five or eighty five different kind of crops and biodiversity,
Speaker 2: you're much more likely to survive. Something challenges ey research
Speaker 2: and agriculture and produce. So this is why I'm bringing
Speaker 2: up that. But like the food stuff, I think is
Speaker 2: always very cool too because it is this interesting point
Speaker 2: of like recognizing biodiversity works well for like mitigating environmental challenges,
Speaker 2: but human mental, and kind of spiritual and cultural diversity
Speaker 2: also works really well too for approaching problems, right, And
Speaker 2: that we also don't need one solution, right, We actually
Speaker 2: need a bunch of different ways of working together to
Speaker 2: solve especially some of the bigger problems that we're facing.
Speaker 2: You know, we talk about polarization, which which is a problem,
Speaker 2: but it's one of those like very much we've made
Speaker 2: it by saying here's the splits in the size. But
Speaker 2: I think you're also right that the idea of like
Speaker 2: the big kind of bubble, that's maybe I think of
Speaker 2: the super organism. It just like it's a lot of
Speaker 2: coming together that is actually what is actually what allows
Speaker 2: us to change and do better at scale, right, and
Speaker 2: the kind of and we need that kind of diversity.
Speaker 2: So I don't know I'm seeing it. I don't anything
Speaker 2: that resonates, but I feel like that that's it gives
Speaker 2: something important to think about it, like what we what
Speaker 2: we do about intentional community right now? Why we need that? Right,
Speaker 2: we're seeing a huge prise. I'm curious if you see
Speaker 2: this as well, Like we know that there's been a
Speaker 2: huge rise in especially with gen Z. You know, you're
Speaker 2: talking about mental health and saying that we need that's
Speaker 2: something that matters to to gen Z folks and they
Speaker 2: want to make sure that they have either support and
Speaker 2: space for that and be able to talk about that,
Speaker 2: whether at university, school or at the job, at the
Speaker 2: workplace that they're in. And you know, thinking about how
Speaker 2: we are changing conversations right to have these these new
Speaker 2: kinds of spaces. You know, what do you kind of
Speaker 2: see as the role of you know, higher reed in
Speaker 2: an eye house, like in helping shape having that space
Speaker 2: right that we can we can kind of change the conversation.
Speaker 2: We can bring in more, more types of topics, more
Speaker 2: types of folks.
Speaker 1: To do that.
Speaker 2: Like how how does high red in your perspective work
Speaker 2: to help us do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you's something you just touched on. I was having
Speaker 1: a conversation with week with being my age and being
Speaker 1: around and as long as I have, you tend to
Speaker 1: see how patterns repeat themselves, or how the pendulum switched
Speaker 1: one way and then it comes back together. I was
Speaker 1: having a conversation with one of my one of my
Speaker 1: staff who's good a few generations behind me, and he
Speaker 1: was commenting about his generation, this generation, this university of
Speaker 1: generation and talking about mental illness and how you know,
Speaker 1: he made the comment that, well, you know, my generation
Speaker 1: is really trying to undo all the damage that your
Speaker 1: generation did. And I, you know what, I was thinking
Speaker 1: the same thing when I was your age about my
Speaker 1: parents' generation. And I it's not like it's a hard
Speaker 1: shift from generation to generate. It's it's slow. It's a
Speaker 1: slow evolution of of change. And you know, I would
Speaker 1: have said the same thing at his age about my parents.
Speaker 1: And you know how I grew up. And so everyone
Speaker 1: looks back and you know, criticizes previous generations, but those
Speaker 1: of us in the previous generation like, we're just doing
Speaker 1: the best we could with what we have. And yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't focus so much on on mental wellness as
Speaker 1: a group. We didn't. We probably internalized too much. We
Speaker 1: didn't work, we weren't good at sharing. However, we were
Speaker 1: different than the generation before us, and we felt we
Speaker 1: moved the needle, moved the ball alone. Yeah, and just
Speaker 1: then that's the perspective we need to take, not that
Speaker 1: we're just drawing all the damage my generation did, but
Speaker 1: they're just continuing that evolution. And yes, you know, evolution
Speaker 1: needs variety, You need diversity to find those better ways
Speaker 1: of doing things, and that's you know, in the organization here,
Speaker 1: I'm all about continual improvement. We try new things, we
Speaker 1: measure the impact, and if it was a positive impact,
Speaker 1: then we keep doing it. If it's not, we learned something,
Speaker 1: we try something else. But if you're afraid to try
Speaker 1: new things because of fear of failure, then then you're
Speaker 1: kind of stuck and and you're not advancing at all.
Speaker 1: So I agree, like you know, you have to have
Speaker 1: all of this diversity of thought. Of that. I didn't
Speaker 1: come from an anthropologic background. I came from a business
Speaker 1: and management background, which was like, if you're a leader
Speaker 1: and you're going to make a decision, you don't want
Speaker 1: to be surrounded by people who are telling you what
Speaker 1: you already know. That's what's challenging you and asking you
Speaker 1: the right questions so that you can be sure that
Speaker 1: your decision is the right one, or to be pivoted
Speaker 1: off of Well, I didn't think about that. Thank you
Speaker 1: for creating that. I'm going to make it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to maybe pivot my decision a little bit because of
Speaker 1: what you were able to bring to And that means
Speaker 1: you need diversity and yet they see anyone quote resources
Speaker 1: those you know, diverse teams underperform.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, fake that's fake news.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, so it seems to be you know,
Speaker 1: let's just take that and just you know, and just
Speaker 1: and just feel comfortable that. Yeah, surrounding yourself with difference
Speaker 1: of opinions and civility and with listening and understanding and
Speaker 1: and empathy is going to lead everyone to have a
Speaker 1: better result and we'll be doing it together. So it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it doesn't feel like the windsor at our
Speaker 1: back right now with all of this society feels you
Speaker 1: know that you know, you see all these these photos
Speaker 1: of you be like, this is your globalism, you know,
Speaker 1: this is your multicultural you know, and and and it's
Speaker 1: always bad scenes. It's not Yes, it's not people coming
Speaker 1: together who are different with their arms around each other
Speaker 1: saying you know, you know, trying to get something accomplished. Positive.
Speaker 1: It's always you know, we need to isolate, We need
Speaker 1: to put ourselves in tribes, otherwise they're going to attack
Speaker 1: us and take us over or ruin our way of lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know that I have a hard time understanding
Speaker 1: why why we're going that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish we knew too. It is a tricky
Speaker 2: thing because it's like it's funny too because like when
Speaker 2: you spend more time either in an international context, right,
Speaker 2: or with people that are just different from you for
Speaker 2: an extended period of time, you come to kind of
Speaker 2: lose that that fear, right, You kind of lose that
Speaker 2: that idea that like, oh, someone's going to steal something
Speaker 2: from me, you know, like I'm going to lose my
Speaker 2: way of life if I if I learned to listen
Speaker 2: to to somebody else that that is different from me.
Speaker 2: And it's like this this funny point of like never
Speaker 2: does that happen actually, right, And actually you realize you're
Speaker 2: actually better off because you actually have a whole new perspective, right,
Speaker 2: you have you have new tastes, you have new kinds
Speaker 2: of friends, you know how to interact in a way
Speaker 2: that you didn't know you know before, right. And so
Speaker 2: it's this funny point that like it is this very
Speaker 2: flat narrative that's like fear based, right that if I
Speaker 2: if I bring in difference, I'm going to change or
Speaker 2: it's threatening my way of life and they want to
Speaker 2: make it different blah, blah blah, you know, but it's
Speaker 2: like the more time you spend with with as humans,
Speaker 2: with other humans that are that are different from you,
Speaker 2: Like that's not ever really the response of like, oh crap,
Speaker 2: I'm losing my way of doing X. You know, It's
Speaker 2: more like I might be wrestling with an evolution of
Speaker 2: how things are changing, how I'm thinking about things, right,
Speaker 2: But never is like I got screwed because I was
Speaker 2: living with people that are different from me, right, And
Speaker 2: so it's funny that we let the narrative like that
Speaker 2: such such a you know, and I think in part
Speaker 2: media right, that we let that narrative be so loud
Speaker 2: and common, right that it's kind of like we're gonna
Speaker 2: be like we don't have to be afraid. It's okay,
Speaker 2: like we can actually like it's it's nice they don't
Speaker 2: have to like go run and do something that's totally different.
Speaker 2: But like being near and with folks that have different perspective,
Speaker 2: different cultures than you is quite helpful. And and I
Speaker 2: think to your point too, like you don't have that
Speaker 2: an anthropology background, Like I appreciate your point of like
Speaker 2: a business background is super important, right, and and yourself
Speaker 2: you've worked in many international contexts also, which I think
Speaker 2: is really important. And like from folks I've talked to,
Speaker 2: I've been been doing this podcast for ten years, and
Speaker 2: like folks that have international experience always do better and
Speaker 2: they always like find it more of a human angle
Speaker 2: with the work that's doing right, And especially I talked
Speaker 2: with a lot of a lot of business leaders too,
Speaker 2: and one because I'm really interested with the work in
Speaker 2: business also, but like I'm interested in these questions of
Speaker 2: like how do we build better businesses for the future, right,
Speaker 2: And like in higher education is also a business right,
Speaker 2: and like thinking about inside of it, we see faculty
Speaker 2: wrestling all the time with like you know, how do
Speaker 2: I either, like on the one political side, divest from
Speaker 2: certain things, but on the other side, like I have
Speaker 2: to you know, do my administrative work and then make
Speaker 2: sure that I'm getting the right kind of you know,
Speaker 2: coursework and research and all things like. It's it's all
Speaker 2: still part of a business machine in its own way,
Speaker 2: as much as some people might limit that. But that's
Speaker 2: not a bad thing. It's just kind of getting a
Speaker 2: sense of, like how do we run businesses in more
Speaker 2: human ways? And so I'm kind of curious your perspective
Speaker 2: having worked across a number of different contexts in many
Speaker 2: different higher ed spaces, but also internationally, like how have
Speaker 2: how does how's that shifted the way you think about
Speaker 2: business and kind of running and leading an organization, and
Speaker 2: also especially this one that's like in an institute of
Speaker 2: higher education for folks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think it is that. You know,
Speaker 1: I've never been afraid to, you know, jump from rock
Speaker 1: to rock. So you know, I finished my MBA and
Speaker 1: started teaching and had a one year contract to go
Speaker 1: to Beijing to teach in China. And I'd never stepped
Speaker 1: foot in China before that, so you know, I was
Speaker 1: in a position of my life is that sounded great?
Speaker 1: When I did do my NBA, China was in every
Speaker 1: class and none of the faculty had ever visited China,
Speaker 1: and so I had this opportunity to go live there
Speaker 1: and work there and experience the culture for the first time.
Speaker 1: And you know, for me, and I always had a
Speaker 1: bit of a risk taker quality to me, so I
Speaker 1: jumped at it, and that one year turned into thirteen years.
Speaker 1: And then you know, when you immerse yourself, you know
Speaker 1: you are very much on the defensive and uncomfortable a
Speaker 1: lot of the time because, yeah, I was not the
Speaker 1: norm over there, and the language challenges, the culture challenges.
Speaker 1: You realize that they have a way of organizing and
Speaker 1: running their lives that is very different than how I
Speaker 1: do it or how I was raised doing it, and
Speaker 1: in some ways it was better. Yeah. Yeah, And then
Speaker 1: so realized, well, there's a lot of different ways to
Speaker 1: do things. Well, it's not a right way in the
Speaker 1: wrong way. There's probably one hundred different ways to do
Speaker 1: it that are right. Some of them may be better
Speaker 1: than others, but you know, it's it's It just gave
Speaker 1: me the perspective that people around the world think and
Speaker 1: do things differently and it works for them. So who
Speaker 1: am I to go flying around the world drop in
Speaker 1: this country complain that, you know, all they eat here
Speaker 1: at eleven o'clock at night. That's ridiculous. Why would you
Speaker 1: eat eleven pm? It works for that part of their culture.
Speaker 1: It's not right or wrong, it's just different, and if
Speaker 1: you're going to go there, expect it to be different.
Speaker 1: We have there's something just kind of an introl joke here,
Speaker 1: you and we have. You know, we're based in the US,
Speaker 1: and my staff want to be home by ten o'clock
Speaker 1: at night to be with their families. And of course,
Speaker 1: part of our community here are you know, maybe folks
Speaker 1: from countries where they eat very late at night, and
Speaker 1: so of course they want us to extend our eating hours,
Speaker 1: you know, our dining hall hours. And I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: I understand where you're coming from. But when I go
Speaker 1: to Spain, for example, I don't expect the restaurants to
Speaker 1: change for me, and I can't change for you my staff.
Speaker 1: All Americans live here, you know, this is a regular
Speaker 1: eating time for us. We shut down at ten o'clock
Speaker 1: and they want to clean up and go home, and
Speaker 1: you know, you've got to adapt to that too. We
Speaker 1: can't cater to everybody because they're all different. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I just was exposed at an
Speaker 1: early age that I traveled around a bit. I did
Speaker 1: spend time in Europe growing up at Irish school, and
Speaker 1: people do think differently, people have different views of the world,
Speaker 1: and I was I never had the idea that there
Speaker 1: was one way of doing something, and all these experiences
Speaker 1: just ought me that, Wow, they do it differently, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of better than how I was doing it.
Speaker 1: They or we you know, how they're doing it doesn't
Speaker 1: work for doesn't really seem to be very effective, but
Speaker 1: you know how they're doing it somewhere else is. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I just had that perspective of the you know,
Speaker 1: there isn't a right and a wrong that there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways to do things. They can
Speaker 1: all be very effective depending on the context and culture.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I felt comfortable being in those uncomfortable
Speaker 1: uh situations, and and and learning and growing from them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Everyone not everyone has an open growth mindset. A lot
Speaker 1: of people have close mindsets and you know, they're very
Speaker 1: you know, those are the faculty that would come to
Speaker 1: China to teach and then within six weeks they took
Speaker 1: a runner and the aid of the Night flew home.
Speaker 1: Man couldn't handle it.
Speaker 2: Uh Yeah, I mean that's a good point too. It's
Speaker 2: like you have to you have to on one and
Speaker 2: also be like be but you have to have a
Speaker 2: growth mindset, but then also be open so that it
Speaker 2: is going to be different, right, And then like that's uh,
Speaker 2: it's that's also the kind of thing I think that
Speaker 2: that Eye House does a really good job at is
Speaker 2: helping all these students recognize that, like, we're going to
Speaker 2: be in a space of difference and diversity because we
Speaker 2: have eighty six different countries represented here and then there
Speaker 2: could be multiple cultures within each of those, right, and
Speaker 2: like so expecting difference, but also this idea too of
Speaker 2: like helping folks recognize that when you're if you're in
Speaker 2: the US to the certain norms that we have in
Speaker 2: terms of like when when we typically would eat in
Speaker 2: this in this country. I know it can obviously be
Speaker 2: very different, but just like, yeah, like if folks want
Speaker 2: to go home at ten pm, that's uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it'd be very tough to be like, you guys need
Speaker 2: to say till midnight, you know, if that's not a
Speaker 2: not a common not a common practice. You know, it's
Speaker 2: like we're not a bar, you're.
Speaker 1: Roight, Yeah, that's Look, it's just appreciating and recognizing the
Speaker 1: cultural differences that we all have and being flexible and
Speaker 1: and and have grace with other people that have do
Speaker 1: things differently, try to understand why they do it that way,
Speaker 1: and not judge people for doing things differently. I mean,
Speaker 1: just giving people space to be who they are and
Speaker 1: and not just about well, you know, I pay a
Speaker 1: lot of money to stay here. You need to do
Speaker 1: it my way. I'm the customer. It's like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a community of folks that are different, and
Speaker 1: we need to try to I just be ping ponging
Speaker 1: from one group to another group if I listen to
Speaker 1: you know, keep it later, open up earlier, you know. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just we have to find a place
Speaker 1: where we can all be comfortable with way things are understanding.
Speaker 1: It may not be my way, that it's what works for
Speaker 1: the community, so we kind of put the community out
Speaker 1: of ourselves.
Speaker 2: I think that that's a brilliant point actually, because because
Speaker 2: I like the contrast you just made there in terms
Speaker 2: of that this is not about the the the customer
Speaker 2: is always right, Like, that's the wrong attitude in this case.
Speaker 2: This is about community, right, And like, how do we
Speaker 2: actually think more intelligently rather than calling everything a transactional
Speaker 2: relationship because they have a customer at paying for a thing.
Speaker 2: It's like there's money exchange to be here. But like
Speaker 2: you know, me and my landlord, if I'm renting or
Speaker 2: if I'm buying the bank, it's like, you don't want
Speaker 2: to just have this one transactional relationship. You want to
Speaker 2: both know them, you know, and like in this case
Speaker 2: even more so, like having a community as part of that,
Speaker 2: Like a really really important piece for us to remember too,
Speaker 2: that like we're not a bunch of just transactions in
Speaker 2: other people's lives, even though we might there be that
Speaker 2: part of it, but like really three D is see
Speaker 2: what we're ultimately looking for, and like help them keep
Speaker 2: that the foregraming.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's because where you know, I'm not a new organization,
Speaker 1: like I keep I said, you know, a hundred years old.
Speaker 1: We've been doing this. We know the way we operate,
Speaker 1: you know, well, some things have changed a lot, some
Speaker 1: things have not changed. And the idea that we have
Speaker 1: to you know, try to create a space that all
Speaker 1: six hundred folks can have the same level of experience
Speaker 1: with all the differences, and we rely on core principles
Speaker 1: and values to do that. You know. I think that's
Speaker 1: where universities have kind of struggled at the moment, is
Speaker 1: that they you know that they seem to be flexible
Speaker 1: on their values and their principles, you know, well, and
Speaker 1: now they're you know, they want to talk about free
Speaker 1: speech on campus, and that's you know, certainly messages coming
Speaker 1: out as as a campus is reopening after the summer break,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, where was that when you were
Speaker 1: you know, allowing a group of students to threaten protesting
Speaker 1: violence against a speaker coming to campus. Where were you
Speaker 1: standing up and being strong and saying no, freedom of
Speaker 1: free speech is vital for us, and we're not going
Speaker 1: to let one group decide whether or not the speaker's
Speaker 1: got to be invited or whether or not people have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to listen and try to understand where they're
Speaker 1: coming from and why they come well, you know, from
Speaker 1: their point of view, and they were very quickly, you know,
Speaker 1: they very quickly canceled people from speaking on campus because
Speaker 1: a certain group would offended. They may be a very
Speaker 1: offensive speaker did. But I'm interested in hearing what they
Speaker 1: have to say and asking hard questions about why they
Speaker 1: feel that way and how they you know, how do
Speaker 1: they got to this point in their whole play where
Speaker 1: they feel so strongly that it's just I want to understand.
Speaker 1: I want to ask questions, I want to challenge people,
Speaker 1: I want to understand people better and canceling them and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm throwing free speech. Well, it's we do
Speaker 1: believe in free speech, however, not here, not there, not here,
Speaker 1: and our universities are trying to stand up and say
Speaker 1: a free speech we allow. And that's the challenge is
Speaker 1: that you have to be strong with your principals and
Speaker 1: and unwavering. Yeah, otherwise it's you know, I think that's
Speaker 1: the challenge. And we think about how we left the
Speaker 1: spring term after graduation with all this violence and up
Speaker 1: people on the campuses. And you know, one thing about
Speaker 1: universities is you know there's graduation, everyone goes home and
Speaker 1: a lot of this cools down as people disperse, and
Speaker 1: now we have residents coming back to campus or the
Speaker 1: students coming back to campus. You've got this political cycle.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be just about election day. It's
Speaker 1: going to be election day to the to the beginning
Speaker 1: of January. And what's going to happen after January? And
Speaker 1: you know, there's it's and the situation the Middle East
Speaker 1: is not significantly changed, right it was when they left,
Speaker 1: And so you know, the cooling off period of the
Speaker 1: summer for these universities, everyone has had a chance to
Speaker 1: kind of reflect on how they handled things in the
Speaker 1: past and how are they going to handle things differently
Speaker 1: this year. And it'll be interesting to see how these
Speaker 1: universities deal with the protests that are going to happen
Speaker 1: on campuses relatively quickly and what they take the position
Speaker 1: of some of the other universities. We're bringing the police,
Speaker 1: we're clearing the camps, we're you know, we're p or
Speaker 1: we're going to sit down with folks. We're gonna have discussions.
Speaker 1: We're going to try to you know, find solutions and
Speaker 1: and peaceful solutions and move forward, you know, which is
Speaker 1: what we essentially had here at Berkeley. Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: think about you know, I saw what was flaring up
Speaker 1: at Columbia University, you know, being here at Berkeley, and
Speaker 1: you know this is you know, student protests where we were,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's part of our brand here, is
Speaker 1: student protests. Yeah, you know, and uh, and I was
Speaker 1: expecting it to be as bad as Columbia, and it was.
Speaker 1: MM administration worked with the with the protesters. They said
Speaker 1: some ground rules about civility and you're allowed to protests,
Speaker 1: but don't block that entry, don't you know, don't be
Speaker 1: violent and they negotiated with them and it was a
Speaker 1: peaceful resolution. Berkeley what them on the front of Fox.
Speaker 3: News every night, which you know is helpful, which is
Speaker 3: you know, surprising, right, Yeah, because it was handled well,
Speaker 3: not every verse you took that approach.
Speaker 1: That that is very true.
Speaker 2: I think that that's a super valuable point too, in
Speaker 2: terms of you know, both being upfront about what one's
Speaker 2: values and principles are and then sticking with them, like
Speaker 2: as because these are the moments when that actually matters, right,
Speaker 2: because it's like, these are the moments when your values
Speaker 2: are actually tested, right, where your principles are tested, Because
Speaker 2: it's how do you respond in a scenario where if
Speaker 2: you're for for free speech but them saying only certain
Speaker 2: people get to get to speak, and then talking about
Speaker 2: what that is and why, And I can say, if
Speaker 2: we're sitting those ground rules, what does that look like?
Speaker 2: But then also saying, okay, are we actually sticking to
Speaker 2: different principles? And I think you're right. We see it
Speaker 2: in the higher education, but we also see it again
Speaker 2: like within professional organizations with cultural organizations, so it isn't
Speaker 2: interesting and challenging important in businesses too. They got they
Speaker 2: got kind of under fire for different reasons, you know,
Speaker 2: but like but still you see when there's there's not
Speaker 2: values being lived out, I think kind of one you know,
Speaker 2: there's maybe that a wrap up question, but just like
Speaker 2: this this idea that like I'm kind of thinking about
Speaker 2: obviously as we think you've touched on this is like
Speaker 2: we are, of course heading into the selection season, so
Speaker 2: it's interesting to think about the universities kind of get
Speaker 2: that cool off period in the summertime when folks kind
Speaker 2: of go away. But you know, so thinking about like
Speaker 2: as we're heading into that season for folks, like you know,
Speaker 2: what do you see kind of with some of those
Speaker 2: challenges or opportunities right like that like campuses can do
Speaker 2: to help kind of foster that constructive dialogue, you know,
Speaker 2: to bring those those pieces in. So I'm like, if
Speaker 2: if folks were saying, Okay, all right, I got I
Speaker 2: need to do one or two or three things, and
Speaker 2: I can't sell it to those things, like what are
Speaker 2: some advice you to have for like other higher education
Speaker 2: leaders or folks that are trying to think about, Okay,
Speaker 2: we know we're going to have either protests, we know
Speaker 2: we're going to be having a conversation at least around
Speaker 2: elections and around January and be beyond. So like, how
Speaker 2: do we how do we think about the challenges and
Speaker 2: opportunities that are coming up, and like what would you
Speaker 2: what would you say to other higher admins and leaders
Speaker 2: to try to how do we navigate this in the
Speaker 2: you know, smartest way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I could only speak from the universities
Speaker 1: I've been a part of. And one of the challenges
Speaker 1: is that, you know, the loss of what what I
Speaker 1: would consider kind of a campus community where the students,
Speaker 1: the fact lead administration, and everyone sees themselves as part
Speaker 1: of the same community. Yeah, and or even departments looking
Speaker 1: at one department to the other department. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of times these things are just so siloed and
Speaker 1: so tribal, and it's the administration the faculty against the administration,
Speaker 1: and it's the you know, the students against the faculty.
Speaker 1: It's you know, the budget against everybody. Yeah, yep, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think for the first part is these universities
Speaker 1: have to start healing their communities so that you know,
Speaker 1: they are seeing that they put you know, we're part
Speaker 1: of Berkeley before I'm part of the school or part
Speaker 1: of what my role is within this community as student,
Speaker 1: faculty or administrator. But I put just like when I
Speaker 1: look at politics, our problem is we're putting our party
Speaker 1: ahead of our country. We should always put our country ahead.
Speaker 1: They look, the most important thing is this is this country,
Speaker 1: and I would never sacrifice, you know, something for my
Speaker 1: party ahead of my country. Right now, it's kind of
Speaker 1: feels very flipped, yeas anything. The same thing with university
Speaker 1: instead of you know, I'm faculty ahead of the university
Speaker 1: or I'm a student ahead of the university, like, except
Speaker 1: that we're all part of the same campus community and
Speaker 1: we need to come together within that and and talk
Speaker 1: about these real issues that we're facing in civil ways,
Speaker 1: you know, and trying to listen and understand everybody's perspective.
Speaker 1: And depending whether you're a faculty or a student or administrator,
Speaker 1: you're coming at these issues with a different point of
Speaker 1: view because there's there's trade offs and that are that
Speaker 1: may be affecting you but not the other groups or
Speaker 1: vice versa. And so the more we can sit down
Speaker 1: and talk and understand each other's point of view, is
Speaker 1: more likely we are to come together and find a
Speaker 1: solution that I think what we see is just this
Speaker 1: breakdown of any kind of community campus community. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I would start with mending, mending communities on campuses,
Speaker 1: and then that gives you a place to bring people
Speaker 1: together and start to have conversations and how do we
Speaker 1: deal with these things? And and and and you know,
Speaker 1: reinforce your principle. Look, we're never gonna get anywhere if
Speaker 1: I try to shut some of you down because I
Speaker 1: don't like what you're saying, you know, because then we're
Speaker 1: all pointing our fingers at each other, right, and we're
Speaker 1: never gonna get anywhere. So let's just allow us to
Speaker 1: come together talk freely. Don't agree. That's why this is
Speaker 1: a big diverse world. Most people don't agree. However, you
Speaker 1: can all still get along and uh and find a
Speaker 1: way that we're competing for resources, sharing resources that benefit
Speaker 1: all of us. Yeah, that's the that's the economic side
Speaker 1: of me coming out.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a great point too, And I
Speaker 2: think that is actually super important because it is like
Speaker 2: it comes similar to what you're saying before too in
Speaker 2: terms of the you know, it's not the customers, right,
Speaker 2: but it's that the community needs to be put first, right,
Speaker 2: And like and thinking about that too. I love this
Speaker 2: idea for the campus community too, and like when we
Speaker 2: can't sit down with folks and like recognize that we're
Speaker 2: if we're in this together, then we are not competing
Speaker 2: for resources, right, we like we are the resource also,
Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, that's it's an important part of the thing.
Speaker 1: I think so well, you know, the a lot of
Speaker 1: the conflict on the campus is and you know, as
Speaker 1: I looked at the campuses that were on the front
Speaker 1: of the front page every day because of the protests
Speaker 1: and powers had a lot of times, it wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: the campus community that was causing the conflict. It was
Speaker 1: outside agitators. People beloved the community coming to the campuses,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's a tough one to handle because
Speaker 1: they're they're priority is not you know, being part of
Speaker 1: the university community and running you know, it's it's trying
Speaker 1: to make this an area where I can you know,
Speaker 1: get my viewpoint out there to the world. And uh,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't helpful. I can say in Berkeley here
Speaker 1: we didn't have the amount of outside agitators as as
Speaker 1: as some of these other campuses saw. I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons we didn't see so much protest
Speaker 1: and violence.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's I think that's that's a good point too,
Speaker 2: in like, uh, that's a sequel conversation we should have,
Speaker 2: I think we need to have in terms of like
Speaker 2: how do we think about that, because it's like we
Speaker 2: do want to both build communities that are inclusive, but
Speaker 2: then also recognizing like what is the on the one hand,
Speaker 2: like what are the bounds of the community that we're defining,
Speaker 2: but then also one of the again principles in the
Speaker 2: like the the kind of foundation that we're building off of.
Speaker 2: In like, if you are coming from a different community,
Speaker 2: you still have to respect the fact that we have
Speaker 2: a foundational principle of civility, right, and you're not living
Speaker 2: up to that, you know, and so therefore you can't
Speaker 2: Like we're not saying you can't have free speech, but
Speaker 2: if you are coming here and causing violence or kind
Speaker 2: of if you're in essence messing with the broader community,
Speaker 2: like that's a very different thing and treating people uncivilly,
Speaker 2: you know, then than expressing your perspective, right, and like
Speaker 2: it's like one of they both, right, you can't you
Speaker 2: can't express yourself and be uncivil you have to do
Speaker 2: you have to also be civil right as part of that.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there are there are folks out there,
Speaker 1: there are groups of folks out there that you know,
Speaker 1: seem to be driven around breaking down, breaking things, breaking
Speaker 1: things down, you know, creating chaos and and and up
Speaker 1: people and violence. And you know, we again acting uncivilly right,
Speaker 1: and so we need to somehow figure out. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting times, you know, I I as I do feel
Speaker 1: like I'm in a bit of a bubble here at
Speaker 1: IOUs because you know, we we we just don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of what we're talking about. What happens across
Speaker 1: the street doesn't seem to carry out when they walk
Speaker 1: into the door of eye outs. And I would hope
Speaker 1: that you know that the lessons that we learn from
Speaker 1: from this experience in some ways translate into society. That
Speaker 1: there's some things we can learn from here. Diversity does
Speaker 1: work if you have just basic ground rules and and
Speaker 1: again you focused on trying to create a diverse community
Speaker 1: that works, and not trying to convince a diverse community
Speaker 1: that my way works. Yeah, and so it's a it's
Speaker 1: an incredible place to be. I I'm very very fortunate
Speaker 1: to be where I'm at and doing what I do possible,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's it's it's an incredible organization.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it sounds super excited, like a very
Speaker 2: very cool organization. I agree, and I'm excited for us
Speaker 2: to check it out. We'll put we'll put links in
Speaker 2: the show notes to check out Eye House and all
Speaker 2: the work that yall are doing. So I think I
Speaker 2: think it's really important and it's a reflection now too,
Speaker 2: like if we're in a space that can be an
Speaker 2: epicenter of protests, like on a university campus, that like
Speaker 2: when you enter the door of Eye House, like we
Speaker 2: don't see that, we see the stability kind of kicking or
Speaker 2: like the kind of like animosity doesn't seem to enter
Speaker 2: into that space. And that's an important and I think
Speaker 2: valuable lesson for folks to recognize and realize too, like
Speaker 2: we can set these spaces on purpose. And so I
Speaker 2: think you're doing some some great work. I'm excited to
Speaker 2: see that. It's it's kind of like they've been going
Speaker 2: for so long and that it's going to keep keep rocking.
Speaker 2: So I think it's it's an important reminder that like
Speaker 2: we want to we want to do this. We want
Speaker 2: to build together right.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, like I said, we've been doing this
Speaker 1: for one hundred years and where we're at right now
Speaker 1: and being the role I'm at, it's looking at the
Speaker 1: next time years and seeing you know, we do have
Speaker 1: this power to convene to bring the community together. Because
Speaker 1: we don't we're a political we don't have a point
Speaker 1: of view. You know. Our point of view is bring
Speaker 1: people together. And so we can bring folks from all
Speaker 1: sides into Eye House and have conversations. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, part of my one hundred year vision if
Speaker 1: you were asked me what you know, what I would
Speaker 1: that's my nice question. I want house in every university
Speaker 1: uh in the world, you know, a place for these
Speaker 1: communities to come together, put their difference to the side
Speaker 1: and try to listen and understand. You know. I think
Speaker 1: in some ways, like a zipper, you know, the Ie
Speaker 1: House can be the start of bringing campus communities together.
Speaker 1: And I hope in some ways that we've been able
Speaker 1: to do that here with Berkeley and University of Chicago
Speaker 1: and likewise. So you know, I it's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's a benefit to the campus communities. So awesome cool enough.
Speaker 2: I'm excited. I mean it sounds like we need to
Speaker 2: build build some more eye houses and or like build
Speaker 2: some training programs based off of that we can we
Speaker 2: can bring to the universities or something. Programs we have
Speaker 2: there you go see are you are you ready.
Speaker 1: And let's let's chat in a few years.
Speaker 2: Pretty cool. Also, that sounds great. That's a great so
Speaker 2: Sean soon Carver thinks so much joining me on the POTEA.
Speaker 2: That's been great to talk with you. I'm getting super
Speaker 2: enthused by the work that you're doing in an Ie
Speaker 2: house as as a kind of begon for folks to
Speaker 2: be able to see what's the place we can actually
Speaker 2: come together to have conversation and and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: bring stability to it. So yeah, keep doing the great work.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you taking the time to converse and dialogue today.
Speaker 2: It's been been a lot of fun and yeah, let's
Speaker 2: let's keep rock and roll.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Christen