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The St. Olaf College Institute for Freedom and Community will host a wide range of events on campus this spring to discuss issues at the heart of American democracy, from ways to bridge divides and learn to disagree in a polarized political environment to a conference on communicating about science in an era of misinformation.

The events in the Democracy and Dialogue series are free and open to the public, and most will also be streamed and available for on-demand viewing online.

St. Olaf Professor of Political Science Chris Chapp, the Morrison Family Director of the Institute for Freedom and Community, notes that this series is an important way to increase dialogue about challenging issues.

“We live in a time when the ways we communicate about politics are changing rapidly. Our spring speakers not only offer interesting policy prescriptions, but each event also models different approaches to political discourse,” he says.

In addition to public presentations, the spring speakers will visit St. Olaf classes, attend receptions, and present students with the opportunity to ask questions and engage with their work on a deeper level.

The spring series will feature a March 24 lecture by Manu Meel, the leader of an organization called BridgeUSA that is the largest and fastest-growing student movement working to bridge differences and change how Americans talk about politics. His talk, titled A New Divide — The Possibility for Dialogue will begin at 5:30 p.m. in Viking Theater in Buntrock Commons. It will be streamed online.

Meel is the host of the weekly podcast The Hopeful Majority, and he works on pro-democracy efforts nationally and advises political leaders on reducing polarization. He previously served at the Department of State as a political analyst in counterterrorism and was an associate at the venture capital firm Amplo. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other media platforms. In 2022 Meel was recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.

“We live in a time when the ways we communicate about politics are changing rapidly. Our spring speakers not only offer interesting policy prescriptions, but each event also models different approaches to political discourse.”

— Institute for Freedom and Community Director Chris Chapp

The spring series will continue on April 14 with a discussion between University of Minnesota Associate Professor of Sociology Michelle Phelps and University of Southern California Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jake Monaghan on The Challenge of Criminal Justice Reform. Their discussion will begin at 3:30 p.m. in Viking Theater in Buntrock Commons. It will be streamed online.

Phelps is the co-author of Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice. Her research has been featured in media outlets including The Washington Post, The New Yorker, TIME, and NPR, and has informed criminal justice reform efforts by the Human Rights Watch and the Pew Charitable Trust’s Public Safety Performance Project. Monaghan is the author of several academic articles on political philosophy and policing, as well as the book Just Policing, which explores what just and legitimate policing looks like when there are failures in adjacent components of the political and criminal legal systems. 

On April 25 and 26 the IFC will host a Science Communications Conference in partnership with Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Physics Anne Gothmann. The two-day event will feature an undergraduate research poster session, a series of panel discussions, and visiting scholars from a wide array of colleges and universities. St. Olaf President Susan Rundell Singer, a prolific STEM scholar and educator who previously led the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation, will participate in the conference and host a reception for scholars and presenters.

The conference will feature a keynote address by Kasisomayajula Viswanath titled Truth and Evidence: Public Communication and Science in the Era of Misinformation. His talk will begin at 4 p.m. on April 25 in Tomson Hall 280. It will be streamed online.

Viswanath is the Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and in the McGraw-Patterson Center for Population Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He serves as the director of several programs and centers at both institutions. The central goal of his work is to influence public health policy and practice through knowledge translation. His work draws from literature in communication science; social epidemiology, dissemination, and implementation; and social and health behavior sciences. 

An award-winning researcher and mentor, Viswanath has written more than 300 journal articles, book chapters, and books. He has served on national committees for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Viswanath is currently the chair of NASEM’s Consensus Study Committee on Understanding and Addressing Science Misinformation, a member of the Standing Committee on Advancement of Science Communication, and a member of the Planning Committee on the Public Health Infodemic and Trust in Public Health as a National Security Threat.

The spring series will conclude on May 5 with a conversation between Chapp and John Inazu, the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion and Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. The conversation, titled Learning to Disagree, will begin at 3:30 p.m. in Viking Theater in Buntrock Commons. It will be streamed online. The event is supported by the Ruth Michelson McGaffey Endowment.

Inazu’s scholarship focuses on the First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion, and related questions of legal and political theory. His books include Liberty’s Refuge: The Forgotten Freedom of Assembly and Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference. Inazu is the special editor of a volume on law and theology and co-editor of Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference. His latest book, Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect, was published in 2024.

More details on all of the IFC’s spring events can be found on the Democracy and Dialogue page.

Established at St. Olaf in 2014, the Institute for Freedom and Community encourages free inquiry and meaningful debate of important political and social issues among students, faculty, and the general public. The Institute sponsors a range of programming opportunities, in addition to the lecture series, to further cultivate civil discourse within the context of the liberal arts.