On Wednesday afternoon, Senior Vice President for Inclusion and Diversity Benje Douglas invited students to Moulton Union to share their thoughts and suggestions for the future of the College’s Viewpoint Exchange program, following the conclusion of this fall’s series of seven speakers. This semester’s series of talks was part of the “Working Together” initiative outlined by President Safa Zaki in an email sent to students, faculty and staff last March. The lectures addressed a variety of topics, all aimed at fostering open and meaningful conversation between Bowdoin students and the broader Brunswick community.

The forum began with Douglas providing a brief overview of the Viewpoint Exchange program so far before opening the conversation to the attending students. He expressed his intention to use this event as a time for reflection and to hear feedback from students as the program continues to expand.

“The reason why we are here today is really to hear from students directly about folks that you are excited about bringing to campus,” Douglas said. “[We want] ideas for speakers that you may want to see in the future and [to answer] any questions you might have about how the series has come to be and where we are headed next.”

A handful of students voiced their opinions to Douglas, offering names of speakers they believe would be a good fit. They specifically expressed a desire for a Palestinian-focused speaker to better include a variety of perspectives. Douglas acknowledged both the positive feedback and the suggestions for improvements, reflecting on this semester’s speaker series with a growth mindset.

“I think there were some really interesting speakers, and people enjoyed the conversations. Sometimes that is enough. I do hear people feeling that there are folks that are missing, and I understand that,” Douglas said. “But for the people who went to the talks that were here, I think that there were things that surprised them [or] delighted them. [For] almost all the people who came here, I do not know if students would have been exposed to them in the ordinary course of their day or week.”

Douglas also addressed some of the challenges the program has faced, including scheduling logistics with certain speakers, finding the right fit and striking a balance between student and community member considerations. He emphasized that he does not want the series to be exclusive to a Bowdoin audience and believes that connecting students and the broader community enriches the larger conversation. Douglas explained that each speaker must be booked well in advance, fit a specific time frame and be comfortable with public-facing work. All of these factors shape the deliberation process when selecting speakers.

“The goal of these talks is to build on each other,” Douglas said. “‘What building blocks do we need to create to allow those higher-level conversations to happen?’ I think that is an important thing to think through.”

Another important aspect of the Viewpoint Exchange program is the dinners that follow some speaker events, allowing attendees to engage with one another and the speaker’s message in a more casual setting. Director of Institutional Inclusion and Diversity Programs Katy Stern leads these events and reflected on them in a similarly positive light in an interview with the Orient.

“Often we go to a talk and then run to something else that is not related. So just to have that grounding to talk about it has been very important to see people engage,” Stern said. “I think a lot of us have dinner with the same people every night, but to be able to have a meal with different people—I think that process can be very powerful and we want to create spaces for that.”

Douglas and Stern are similarly hopeful for the program’s future. The Viewpoint Exchange series will continue next semester, with four or five speakers scheduled. These will be announced around the end of this semester.

“We want the world to feel a little different than it does right now in a lot of ways, and I do not want to oversell what the speaker series can do in doing that, but having people who folks are excited to listen to and be a part of is really important,” Douglas said. “I don’t think this can be the only thing we do, but it has to be something we take very seriously.”

Brendan McLoughlin ’29 attended one of the talks earlier this semester and described his positive experience in an interview with the Orient, emphasizing the importance of having such a program on campus.

“I think it is important to bring in various viewpoints and to allow for dialogue on campus,” McLoughlin said. “A lot of the time we just turn towards emotions, so having speakers like this is very informative, especially ones who are not trying to push a narrative or tap into how they necessarily feel. Simply delivering facts is very important.”