SNF Dialogues

Curated & Moderated by:
Anna-Kynthia Bousdoukou

Tuesday 12 November 2024
5:00 pm EST

The Role of Universities in Modern Democracy

Universities are havens for freedom and the pursuit of knowledge; however, they are facing significant challenges in today’s divisive climate. How can we ensure that they continue to fulfill their crucial role in promoting and safeguarding democratic values and inspiring democratic change?

Opinions

Tuesday 29 October 2024

The culture wars threaten higher education

Amy Binder, SNF Agora Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, discusses the threats posed on higher education institutions by culture wars, political polarization and media disinformation. This opinion article is published in light of the upcoming SNF Dialogues event, which will explore the role of universities in modern democracies.

Opinions

Wednesday 09 October 2024

Six ways for higher education to repair democracy

Assistant Professor of Political Science, at the University of Texas, Jonathan Pinckney, discusses higher education’s crucial role in countering “democratic backsliding” today. The opinion article is published in light of the upcoming SNF Dialogues event, that will explore the role of universities in modern democracies.

Opinions

Monday 16 September 2024

Moral Frontiers: Ethics, Health Risks, and Missions to Mars

Professors Jeffrey Kahn and Anna Mastroianni from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics discuss long-duration space travel as well as the moral implications and health risks that it harbors

Topics

Monday 22 July 2024

Soundwaves of expression: how music shapes social consciousness

How has music elevated us as citizens when traditional politics couldn’t? The SNF Dialogues interviewed five experts, seeking an answer.

The role of universities in modern democracy

Events on demand

All Events

Through podcasts, videos, and multimedia content of all kinds, the SNF Dialogues explore different angles and shed light on the issues that define us all.

Soundwaves of expression: how music shapes social consciousness

A world with no insects?

Biblioburro: the donkey library of Colombia

All Τopics

Speakers, experts, and citizens share their knowledge and experience on every possible field of science, culture, or just everyday life, keeping the Dialogue alive.

The culture wars threaten higher education

Amy Binder

Six ways for higher education to repair democracy

Jonathan Pinckney

Emotions in Politics

Sigal Ben-Porath

All Opinions

Dialoguers

Irene Mulvey

AAUP Immediate Past President; Professor Emerita of Mathematics, Fairfield University

We in the Higher Ed community have not done a good job in explaining the value and the importance of the university. It’s not just good to have in a democracy; It is a pillar of democracy, and when you undermine it, you are threatening democracy.

Appears on:

59 The Role of Universities in Modern Democracy

John Tomasi

President, Heterodox Academy

A wider range of political viewpoints expressed intelligently on campus, aiming for truth - that would be a better situation than when there’s less viewpoint diversity.

Appears on:

59 The Role of Universities in Modern Democracy

John Holmwood

Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Nottingham

Part of the problem is how the university is being constructed in the public imagination and that’s very different from the way the university is in terms of the experience of most students.

Appears on:

59 The Role of Universities in Modern Democracy

Luke McDermott

External Vice President, Association of Students of the University of Nebraska; Chairman, Husker Vote Coalition

Universities have become much more corporatized over the years, and they see disruption as an interruption of the product that students are buying, instead of a supplement to the experience that they are living in.

Appears on:

59 The Role of Universities in Modern Democracy

Anna Oakes

Multimedia journalist, Graduate student, Columbia Journalism School

Τhere’s been a sense of a real disruption of the fragile trust between students and the administration (during the student protests at Columbia University).

Appears on:

59 The Role of Universities in Modern Democracy

Jonathan Pinckney

Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Texas

A robust civic education initiative builds understanding of how democratic backsliding works, can dispel incomplete or inaccurate views of democracy and inform students of the importance of institutional constraints.

Amy Binder

SNF Agora Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University

Colleges and universities should seek to enhance civic engagement and inclusive dialogue among all of their constituents and accentuate research with direct, real-world impacts. They must welcome faculty, students, and outside partners from a wide range of ideological perspectives and social backgrounds. They should seek to be forums for debate, disagreement, and deliberation.

Sigal Ben-Porath

Presidential Professor of Education & Director of SNF Paideia at the University of Pennsylvania

To preserve and strengthen our democracy we need to make room for emotions in politics, but not to give up our agency and our capacity to control the decisions that each of us makes.

Appears on:

58 Consumers or Citizens

Hahrie Han

Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University

Democracy is something you do, not something you have. Right now, we are treating it like something we have.

Appears on:

19 Talking (and Listening) Across Divides,

33 The Interplay between Technology and Democracy: Pοtential and limitations,

37 Τhe Power of Dialogue,

55 Reconnecting in a Fractured Political Landscape,

58 Consumers or Citizens,

59 The Role of Universities in Modern Democracy

Timothy Shriver

Chairman, Special Olympics International

To treat another with dignity is to recognize that no matter how much we may disagree and no matter how painful our relationships may have become, we can still recognize the worth of the other. Contempt demeans and destroys; dignity uplifts and heals.

Mark McKinnon

Political Analyst & Media Producer

The problem is that the tools we have now amplify anonymity and encourage warfare like we have never seen before. We become tribal for lots of different reasons. The problem is that if people cannot agree on facts, how can they even have a discussion?

Appears on:

58 Consumers or Citizens

Jennifer Palmieri

Political and Communications Strategist, Senior Advisor at Emerson Collective

The problem is trust and with disinformation and just the internet it’s so easy for people to bind to disinformation, which is really bad for democracy. The problem for democracy is that authoritarian leaders want you to believe that nothing matters and think that you can’t trust institutions.

Appears on:

58 Consumers or Citizens

Timothy Shaffer

SNF Ithaca Director and Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Chair of Civil Discourse in the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration, University of Delaware

Where is that line [between citizenship and journalism]? It is that sense of professional expectations of what it means to be a journalist. But I would almost flip it; how much do journalists think of themselves as citizens? How do we enable or support professionals to see themselves in a civic way?

Appears on:

56 Spectators or Citizens?,

58 Consumers or Citizens

Anthony Marx

President of The New York Public Library

It is the symbolic power that people experience, of being welcome, without any papers, without any credentials, respected, in a space that is majestic. When I started this job, somebody said to me: ‘Oh that’s where the homeless go’. We should be proud of that, that’s where everyone can go: the Nobel laureates, the homeless, and everyone in between.

Appears on:

57 Beyond Books: How libraries can serve the public

Ares Kalandides

Urban scholar and Academic Advisor at New York University, Berlin

We need to understand libraries, books and knowledge as a public good. Public goods are under a very serious threat. And as an urban planner, I also see libraries as a public space. A public space does not need to be an open space. It can be, but that’s not the idea. The library has two characteristics; it’s open for everybody and it’s free, you don’t have to consume.

Appears on:

44 The Return to Public Space,

57 Beyond Books: How libraries can serve the public

Tanya Harrison

Co-Founder and Director, Earth and Planetary Institute of Canada

People tend to assume that the struggles that we're going to run into with sending humans to Mars are technological. Can we feed them? Can we keep them warm? Can we keep them healthy? But I don't think we fully understand what the mental impact will be.

James Giordano

Professor of Neurology, Biochemistry and Ethics at Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington DC USA

It is critical to discern science fact from science fiction, and to define the actual capabilities, and limitations of both brain-computer interfacing technologies, and of those individuals and groups that are engaged in their development, use, and regulation.

Darren Lilleker

Professor of Political Communication at Bournemouth University

Digital technologies allow everyone to have a voice to some extent. Anyone can speak, but not everyone can be heard.

Appears on:

56 Spectators or Citizens?

Laurie Ouellette

Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Minnesota

What the media are trying to do is not to passivize citizens, but to activate them as fans. They are blurring boundaries between information and entertainment and politics.

Appears on:

56 Spectators or Citizens?

Lilliana Mason

Associate Professor of Political Science at the SNF Agora Institute of Johns Hopkins University

Leaders have a big role to play (…) Their motivations are often based on how to get more votes and how to get more money and…[they] create more conflict to get those things. Having leaders be more responsible participants in democracy (…) could tone things down.

Appears on:

55 Reconnecting in a Fractured Political Landscape

Peter Ditto

Professor of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine

When you feel that it’s morally offensive what the other side is doing…it creates anger, anxiety, very often fear, particularly when they are in power, and you could see the connections between the political and the personal in this sort of situation.

Appears on:

55 Reconnecting in a Fractured Political Landscape

Carlo Barbante

Director of Italy's Institute of Polar Sciences

What is happening in polar regions, doesn’t stay in polar regions. It affects the ocean, the atmosphere, and the continents at lower latitudes.

Esther Duflo

Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)

The…mistake is that we are focusing too much on economic growth. That should not be an end, that should be a means. The end would be welfare in developing countries. Simple things, like being alive, not dying in infancy or in childbirth, being able to go to school…

Foteini Tsalikoglou

Author and Professor of Psychology at Panteion University

Our psyche is a product of dialogue, as, from the moment that we are born, we are part of a relationship. There is no ‘I’ without an ‘other.’ From this initial condition derive the difficulties, but also the beauty, that shape the adventures of our psyche.

Appears on:

38 The Psychological Effects of a Year Living with Covid-19

Nikos Alivizatos

Emeritus Professor of Constitutional Law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Everyone has the right to define themselves as they wish, and to believe whatever they want, but when they coexist with others, they cannot set the rules of the whole game.

Appears on:

37 Τhe Power of Dialogue

Alondra Nelson

President of the Social Science Research Council and Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University

More than ever before it’s both important to have real experts at the table and those who are not experts but live with the consequences of the decisions that are being made by a technocratic society.

Appears on:

33 The Interplay between Technology and Democracy: Pοtential and limitations

Thodoris Chondrogiannos

Journalist

Dogfighting is inextricably linked to other crimes. When we investigate the issue of dogfighting, it's like investigating arms and drug dealing.

Appears on:

23 Cruelty toward Animals

Dimitris Christopoulos

Professor at the Department of Political Science and History at Panteion University

The purpose of dialogue is not to deliver compliments. Dialogue is necessary in difficult situations and arguments, where our patience and tolerance are being tested.

Appears on:

37 Τhe Power of Dialogue

Alex Piquero

Chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology and Distinguished Scholar of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami

One of the strongest risk factors for later violence is exposure to violence.

Appears on:

50 Manifestations of violence

All Dialoguers