Building Inclusive Universities: Lessons from Shaun Carver

One of the challenges that I, I have is, you know, I look at the beauty of this community, how well it works, but, you know, keep in mind that people self select to apply to I House. We are an independent nonprofit. We're associated with the university. Rockefeller gifted the building to the university, but he also stipulated that the organization needs to be outside of the university.

People that want to be in this environment apply here. In a lot of ways, the university set up these affinity houses or try to get these tribes to settle into, you know, uh, communities. And then they're surprised that these tribes are, are, are finding conflict and differences with each other because they are creating echo chambers.

We're the tribe and we are different. And one of the things we have in common is that we, we want to be here. We want to be surrounded by people who are different than us. We want to ask questions and listen and try to understand.

One thing I'm really excited to talk with you today on this anthro life, uh, about, you know, higher education is this such an important point of so many people's lives. Um, and. It, you know, shapes future generations and shapes kind of how folks are approaching the next part of their lives in the world and like even, you know, because I have, I have a three month old now, so he's not thinking about college yet, but like, as we know, we begin even like early on to be planning and thinking about, you know, what, what kind of schooling we want our kids to have.

And then, you know, you know, from who knows from high school, certainly, but even younger people are thinking about what college they want to get into and how they want to get there. And then when you go to college, right, it's this whole experience of. Uh, you know, if you're a freshman moving into a dorm for the first time, what that can be like in terms of new experiences, new friends.

If you're an international student, that can also totally change. the equation also, right? If you're, if you're totally leaving home, uh, for something else. And I think that it's, it's such an important and magical and challenging and dangerous and, and all these things place for, for folks, you know, and like, we have such interesting conversations happening across the U S now in the world around the role of higher ed, we're in this crazy space, as we know, 2024 of, uh, you know, political polarization seems to be reaching some kind of fever pitch in the world.

Right. And, uh, you know, controversy is no, Uh, nothing foreign to college campuses, you know, and oftentimes that can be the epicenter of these kinds of storms sometimes. And, you know, I want to put that in bucket one and bucket two, of course, is we're approaching an election cycle right here also. And, uh, and that also raises questions around both polarization, but also inclusive dialogue and communication with people that have different perspectives.

Right. And so I think there is a really important challenge that, that, um, higher ed is, is facing around like fostering inclusive and safe environments for different kinds of viewpoints. Right. And it's, it's kind of critical. I'm really excited to talk with Sean Confer with CEO of international house at UC Berkeley, which is a really interesting, um, area.

Blend of both a kind of independent nonprofit, but also connected with a university. And I house has been around for, you know, nearly a century, which I thought was really cool. And kind of looking and getting a sense of what the organization is itself. And so you've seen a lot of challenges through I house of issues that the U S is faced, right?

There's been issues around wars and civil rights issues and, and, you know, geopolitical upheavals and things like that. And so you're excited to get your perspective on how we can think about this and how do we build sense of hope and how we demonstrate. That we can heal different cultural divides, um, in these kinds of inclusive spaces as part of campuses.

And so first of all, Sean, great to have you. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I really appreciate being here and the opportunity to talk to you and your listeners. Right on. So, so diving into these ideas, like in this world where it seems like we can have these kind of social media echo tribalism seems to be an unfortunate norm, you know, I want to hear about your work with like international house and how have you kind of begun to set and think about the tone and the space and like creating an environment where we can have multiple different kind of viewpoints coming together, um, not just to coexist, but to actually be productive in dialogue and communication with each other.

Yeah. I mean, I think to put that in, in, in kind of the context of the history of I House and this is a, a hundred year old institution and actually the, the origin story starts in 1909. Right. And so, um, to give a quick history lesson of I House, um, a man, 26 year old man, Harry Edmonds was working at the YMCA affiliated with Columbia university.

So as he's walking down the steps one fall morning of the Columbia university library, He passes a student and as you do, you say, good morning. Um, so the student stopped and it kind of sparked a conversation and the student said, you know, I'm from China. I've been here for three weeks and you're the first person to talk to me.

And so Harry was really touched by that interaction and went home and, and told his wife Florence about the, you know, um, how isolated, how lonely, you know, the sheer scholars and academics coming literally halfway around the world and being, you know, pushed off into housing that is in the, um, not most desirable places in the city, oftentimes far away from the universities.

Um, people are not acknowledging them and this is 1909. So. I always think it's the vision of the Titanic movie comes to mind, because that's where this was going, where this was happening. And so Florence insisted we need to do something. And what they did was they started inviting international students into their hall, uh, for what's called Sunday supper, you know, and I sit down, have a meal, have a conversation, go by the fire, have a drink, um, uh, and talk about, you know, just building relationships, talk about your history, your culture, your country, your points of view.

You know, what are you studying? And, and from these just simple Sunday suppers of guests in their apartment developed this community of, of folks that wanted to, um, one, engage with people from around the world. And again, 1909, people weren't flying on vacation to Europe or Asia, um, unless they had the money to do the grand tour of Europe, the interaction was only in their peer groups in the cities.

And so, you know, this, this, this community of folks that wanted to, that saw value in interacting with people who were different than them. And people in, in, in New York, uh, that wanted to support, uh, this initiative and saw this, wow, what a great way to, To build lifelong friendships, to build a better intercultural understanding and more respect.

And, um, you know, wouldn't the world be a great place if we were all connected in this. Um, and so that's how we started off, uh, John D Rockefeller as the flat of this in New York and, and, uh, the Dodge family got involved and they built, uh, um, essentially what Harry and Florence vision was, which was this, uh, home where they could live together.

Eat together, uh, support each other and be a center of all of this, um, intercultural exchanges. And so the first I house opened up in 1924, adjacent Columbia university. It's still there today. But, um, it was such a big hit that Rockefeller and Edmonds decided to open one up in Berkeley, University of Chicago.

Um, there was plans for Boston, uh, where you're at as well as Philadelphia. Um, however, you know, 1929 depression hits and, uh, he was only able to complete Boston and, uh, I'm sorry, complete, uh, Berkeley and Chicago. Um, and so, you know, that's, that's what we do, uh, since 1930, we've been here at the Berkeley campus, uh, building built by Rockefeller and Edmonds.

We house currently about 620 international and domestic residents. Um, Um, this year we just have moving week last week. So we have 82 different nationalities in that, in that cohort of 600, um, there's no dominant culture. Um, I think domestic students are the biggest population at 18 percent this year, followed by China, which I think is about nine or 10 percent India, France, and you know, then we go to a long list of countries.

Have, um, a few representatives in this entire community that, that that's cool. Our whole, yeah, our whole purpose is to, you know, to, to bring people together that, um, uh, to have that, that interaction that was happening in 1909 in the apartment of Harry and Florence, where you meet someone new, you listen, you talk, you exchange ideas, um, you try to understand their perspectives better.

Um, oftentimes that's in our dining hall. We do room and boards here. So they, they live here and they eat here. And so that's how we facilitate these exchanges. And it's, uh, it's really is incredible. You know, you talked about the, you know, the conflict, uh, on, on campuses recently, Berkeley was not immune to that.

I mean, certainly a lot of these, you know, we have an encampment here and we have protests here, um, not to the extent of Columbia or UCLA or, or Washington, but, um, it didn't come into the house. Oh, people saw each other as part of the same community. Um, and it wasn't tribal, right? The tribe is us, all of us versus, you know, the, on campus, the conflict is, is between tribes, like minded people against other like minded people.

And then the friction that happens when you're in a building with 600 people who all think differently than you, you're vulnerable, right? No one wants to stand up on a soapbox and say, this is the way we all should think, because no, you're not going to get much of a, you know, group behind you supporting you.

What you do get is people who are vulnerable and will talk about. Um, you know, here's my point of view, but I want to understand where you're coming from. Why, why is that? Um, and that's really healthy, you know, there's civility in this house. Um, there is discussion, there is debate, um, but there's not violence.

There's not, you know, treating people meanly. It's it's, it's trying to understand how do we find common ground to move forward. That's the whole reason we existed. We've been here since 19, you know, 1930. And this isn't the first, you know, time we've been involved in conflict. Yeah. You know, you can go back through history with I House here at Berkeley alone, you know, we were part of the free speech movement.

We were part of the civil rights movement. We're here during, um, World War II during Japanese internment, protecting Japanese citizens. Our law students were writing, uh, cases to get them out. So, you know, we've been very active in, in all of these conflicts, but hopefully, you know. And I, and I productive.

Yeah, that's fascinating. And I mean, as an anthropologist that this is, you know, I really like this because it's, you know, on the one hand, the, I think incredible value of oftentimes going to, uh, uh, you know, college or university for many people because the first time they, they leave home, you know, in a, in a big sense and then having kind of an intentional place where, you know, Uh, we know folks of difference are coming together and we're, we're, you know, kind of providing that space for, for them to like live in, you know, and break bread and, and kind of room and eat and live together is, uh, you know, there's, there's like a dorm, which you can typically think about, right.

But then it sounds like this is like, I house is kind of taking a bit of a next step there in like recognizing the intentional international character of, of so many universities, especially, you know, for talking to, you know, top two universities like Berkeley and Columbia and Chicago to are getting folks from all over the world, right.

Uh, that, that want to come here. And so it's like, how do we. Provide that space. But, you know, I also really appreciate the context you shared there in terms of that. And I want to think about this with you is that obviously, you know, we can see politics, uh, in, in political opinions and things, you know, find their way to college campuses as we're, we're sitting here too, which we know is quite common.

But then also there's this idea of the human that I'm living with or near or next door to my neighbor. Right. And there's always this kind of funny point that whenever we think about polarization, it oftentimes is this kind of straw man of like the enemy. Which we don't, we, we tend to dehumanize, right?

We don't kind of think about them as, as, as another person, but, um, so it sounds like part of the strategy here is to kind of foreground the human, I guess, like that there's a person that's, that's your neighbor, that's your colleague, that's, that they're having, having dinner with you, right? Yeah, I think a hundred percent.

And, you know, just to, Um, you know, one of the challenges that I, I have is, you know, I look at the beauty of this community, how well it works, but you know, keep in mind that people self select to apply to I house. We are an independent nonprofit. We're associated with the university. Rockefeller gifted the building to the university, but he also stipulated that the organization needs to be outside of the university.

Um, there's a great story about why that happened and how we desegregated Berkeley, um, uh, as a result. You know, people, people that want to be in this environment apply here, whereas you go to university dorm, people just need a place to live and they're not necessarily selecting a place to live because they want to be surrounded by different people.

In a lot of ways, the universities set up these affinity houses or try to get these tribes to settle into, you know, uh, communities. And then they're surprised that these tribes are, are, are finding conflict and differences with each other because they are creating echo chambers. Um, and, and these, and these tribes, um, we're us, we're the tribe and we are different.

Um, and one of the things we have in common is that we, we want to be here. We want to be surrounded by people who are different than us. We want to ask questions and listen and try to understand and not always the general dorms on campus. That's the environment. And so, you know, this is something unique, um, uh, within the campus communities because we'll want to get along here.

They want to, um, they want to, I'm going to be challenged. Right. Uh, in the way that they're thinking. Um, I think you're a hundred percent right there. When you look, it's easy to call someone a label and hate them. Right. Let's say, well, this person represents all of these people or the, this person represents these policies or that are, that I'm against and therefore I'm against that person.

When you make it a person, it's, it's, it's much more difficult to. You know, when you have a conversation, um, over dinner, you say, well, they carry that label, but they're not necessarily supporting the point of view that I, that I kind of blanket across all of that group. They're actually a more reasonable person once you talk to them.

And, you know, they, they, they seem to be more empathetic towards each other. Um, and that's when you personalize these, these issues, person to person issues are never as bad as it is government or to government or country to country or religion to give religion. Yeah. You know, then it's just white, you know, whitewashing everything with the same point of view.

Then even within those communities, there's a lot of diversity and thought and opinion, uh, and beliefs. Mm-Hmm. And when you get down to it, you know, a lot of majority of folks are, are, are reasonable, wanna find common ground, wanna find peaceful solutions. And, um, just want safety, security, and a, and a pathway to a better life for themselves and their, and their family and their children.

So, um, you know, that's where we get down. I think the special sauce here is that these are personal relationships. Just really quickly. There's in our hall of history, there's a testimonial from one of our students who was a white South African that was living here during the apartheid period. And we also had a black South African in the house at the same time.

They write this beautiful testimonial that, you know, back home, they would not communicate with each other. They would never have an opportunity to interact with each other. They wouldn't want to interact with each other. Uh, they would just stand across the street and, you know, um, and, and not have any interactions.

However, in this house, they move in, they meet, they'd have a coffee, they start having conversations. They end up becoming friends. And, you know, this is beautiful testimonial that once it became a person to person, and, and you start opening up and, and sharing and. And trying to build understanding, um, a lot of this conflict goes away.

Um, as if there's, you know, as you imagine a hundred years, there's a lot of stories like that were, you know, after World War II, there was Japanese, Germans and Americans and British in this house. Um, tried to kill each other a couple of years before, and now they're here together. Right. And all of that goes away.

So I think, you know, it, it all starts with interpersonal connections and communication and listening and trying to understand and not labeling, uh, you know, uh, entire groups of people. Yeah. And even like, uh, the, the idea too, that. When we pause and kind of put the human back in the frame, we, we also kind of see what we share.

Right. I mean, it reminds me of the, you know, the, they probably off too often quoted, but still fun idea, you know, during World War Two at Christmas when, when, you know, the Axis and the allies came out of their trenches to sing Christmas songs and play, play football together, you know, and it's like this really interesting idea that like, okay, yeah, we are literally fighting, but then turns out we actually do have shared, in this case, shared traditions, shared religious connections, right.

And shared holidays and like, let's actually come together for that. And like in that moment, you can see if people can come together, then it's like, it reminds us then why would we not be able to do this in a, in a home that we're sharing or in a space that we're, that we're, that we're together too. And, and it's kind of reminded that we can do it and it's, it's, we're better when we do it.

Right. Um, well, we, we can do it. We have done it over, you know, thousands of years of history, you know, um, yeah, people that, um, were against each other, um, for various reasons, have found ways to come together and be peaceful. Um, you know, just looking at relative history and, and world wars, you know, can tell me that in 1943, we saw, you know, people thought of Germany as a place that we would be, you Uh, you know, going on vacation and, and we, we love German people or the Japanese or, you know, any of the other, um, you know, so it can change, you know, views can change, uh, entire countries and cultures, um, can find peaceful ways to move forward.

Um, and, and that's what we're all about, uh, here is try to teach that to, to 624 residents every year, as we launched them out, it's like, Hey, you know, we can. There's other ways besides shouting down, canceling, and, and threatening other people who disagree with you. Yeah, and that's such an important point too, because we are, we have a You know, on the one hand, seeing, uh, at the current moment that we're talking now, this is, you know, late August in 2024, but just in general, like, we, we saw like the rise in, you know, around COVID and, and for a few years like this rise, you know, from, from me to move into cancel culture.

And now there's been a bit of a kind of a pushback in terms of saying, well, it's not, we don't need to cancel everybody. We need to be kind of careful about how we're deploying, uh, you know, on the one hand, weapons of, of retribution, but then at the same time, like, what is justice actually, how do we actually, actually bring justice forward, you know?

And like the interesting challenge points that. Um, you know, on the one hand, like, feel it new in terms of how we're reckoning with and we need to reckon with things like, like sexual harassment, sexual violence, especially in college campuses. Sure. Um, and like how it's gone through Hollywood and like, you know, how the, how the entire process through me too, and how that it's like reverberated through society, but then also things around George Floyd protests and black lives matter and these, these notions of like, how do we reckon with the social needs of today?

But then kind of as we're talking here too, like there's, I think it's really interesting and important history to remember of like how we've seen other kind of conflict, uh, work, like working through conflicts in, in historical moments in the U. S. that we're kind of talking about here too. And like, even thinking about how at, at I House itself as a, as a place, like thinking about that as a character in a story, right?

And the things that I House has seen in terms of conflicts and then resolutions and how folks have kind of worked through them together, I think it's really, really interesting. And. Yeah, obviously one of the, you know, interesting pieces about this too is like the, the, you know, coming together of so many international students also.

Right. So we having a lot of cultural mixing that, that takes place too. And I think that's an interesting thing. I'm just kind of curious to think about, about that idea of like, you know, I don't know, strategies or things that you found that are effective for like helping create those environments where we can, we can have multiple kinds of cultures come together and, and have space.

Obviously there'll be some mistakes and some things that people kind of say, Oh, you know, either shouldn't say that or don't call me this. Sure. You know, Not in, in a rude way, but just like, Oh, I didn't realize I shouldn't say X thing, you know, about somebody, but like, how have you find kind of strategies to help mitigate and help folks kind of come together around, you know, or bringing different cultures together in ways that can kind of work, uh, work together and kind of figure things out as they go.

You know, I think one thing is because we're such an old and established institution, it's having principles and core values that, um, you know, are consistent. Obviously in this house, we have to be civil, you know, um, this is, these are close quarters. I can tell you when they designed, you know, the architects in 1930 didn't, you know, um, create these large living spaces for the students.

Uh, these are very modest, um, and you know, all of the undergrads have to double up. They share a room with someone from a different country by design, forced an interaction. And so, you know, we didn't have, um, an understanding of, you know, you ha we all have to be civil in this environment. Um, you know, things would, Fall apart rather quickly.

Yeah. Um, and so, you know, that's the first just to solve you like, look, we, we understand we're all going to, we can disagree. Um, and I may not agree with you. And that may make me frustrated or angry. However, I'm still going to be civil about it. Um, and, um, And that's where it needs to start and I, you know, it seems civility is lost in a lot of these, these, the current situation that, um, you know, you hear things that come out of people's mouths, uh, you know, in, in debates, uh, our, our leaders, our role models, it's just not a civil war, you know, it's not, it's not civil anymore.

We're not treating people kindly with respect. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's, it's a whole nother issue. Um, and I think it's just, you know, we also have to operate under a free speech, you know, we have to allow every of those 82 nationalities and all of those 624 people, but you know, we talk, we, we tend to fall back and talk about diversity because they have different passports, but the reality is economic diversity, gender diversity, I mean, uh, area of interest to other studying on campus diversity, um, You know, they're on a law, business and engineering students.

I've got, you know, um, some of the most obscure majors on campus are found in this house for a reason. Yeah. Cause I want those people here. I want them to, you know, what they bring is so valuable to us to, to just make everything so complicated and diverse, wonderful, but you can't have that if you don't, if people don't feel comfortable in expressing their opinions, you, so you have to allow free speech in this house and understand that, you know, there's things people are going to say that you may not agree with.

Well, that you're definitely not going to agree with, um, you know, welcome to a diverse world. Like, you know, sit down and talk to that person, try to understand why they have that opinion. Um, coming up, you know, I feel like there's a, there's a certain level of uncomfortableness I have when we start talking about hate speech or safe spaces, because those seem to be, you know, whenever you come up with policies or rules to create that, it seems like the only way to create those spaces are by excluding the certain points.

Yeah. I know. I don't think that's what we're about because once you start excluding people, you're never going to understand that we never have an opportunity to like, well, let's engage them in the conversation. I, I am baffled by why you feel this way. I really want to understand how, how are you raised?

What is it about your culture that led you to come to this? I want to understand. Um, you know, and that may not be a safe space for everybody. It also defines what a safe space is. You know, you have a question. You know, you have, it's very, uh, ethnocentric, right? You do whatever you create it. So, you know, I say blow out the gates and just let everyone have free speech under these rules of civility and listening to understand.

And we're not trying to indoctrinate people. We're not trying to convince people. We're just trying to understand people. If we understand each other, we have a chance to move forward and find a way to coexist. That doesn't include me cancelling you, eliminating you, or trying to get that thought erased from history.

Um, you know, and so, I think those are the, the tenets, the principles that you have to have to keep this, um, the magic that happens here happening. A lot of these things you feel, I feel like you just, we've just lost in society. I mean, I don't think social media or, or the media at large is, has been helping us to, um, develop diverse perspectives or deeper understanding of people who disagree.

Yeah, I can't find a new, you know, tell me a news channel that is neutral and we'll give me both sides of the story. Yeah, not sure those are there. Tell me the algorithm that was feeding me content that I normally wouldn't find, but might help me understand the issue better. Right. All, no, they're all focused on taking you down a rabbit hole and surrounding you by one point of view.

Keeps your eyes on the screen. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, that's part of the situation we find ourselves is we need to find ways to, to allow people to open their mind to difference of opinion, but, and, um, again, not with the intent to change anybody's mind. That's what the intent to understand, just to personalize a little bit more, you know, and, um, we come up with all these crazy labels now, you know?

And, uh, yeah. And then this, I know it is, it is interesting. Cause it's like, on the one hand, you know, it's, it's like, Uh, I'm not there yet, but like when you have a, uh, you know, two year old is asking why after every single question, you know, like you get this, you know, at some point, you know, you can see these exasperated parents like, well, you know, at some point and say either just because I said so, or because that's the way it is or something, right?

There's always a to be, and I'm like, I don't want to call it a cop out answer because I'm, I will ask me again in a year and a half. I'm like, okay, yeah, now I see why they say that. But, but in general, like this, the desire to know why is not It doesn't ever come from a place of malice, right? It's like this, this true desire to understand, right?

And you know, in the, the, it seems in general, the two, the two times that we like really allow in, in contemporary U S society, like that we really allow that and push for that is when their kids are like two or three and then in college, which is weird, um, like we kind of like dropped the middle of that in terms of like really kind of talk, especially for liberal arts universities, right?

But like pushing this idea of like general genuine inquiry of like, I'm interested in X, Y, Z, not just learning a bunch of facts. Um, you know, and, and, you know, I don't want to paint too broad of a picture of the U. S. education system, but I think there's a lot of challenges about, like, on the one hand, too, in, in terms of teaching to the test for a lot of things like this, and, and kind of, like, making sure that kids get that content versus, like, how to either think critically or, like, ask questions in a deeper way, and that, you know, I'm glad that we see it.

Higher education institutions doing that, but it is interesting that like, we don't see it getting kind of pushed earlier and like, and, and if we do see it, it like gets pushed into a space of privilege in terms of for AP classes, right. Or like advanced placement or like honors, like that's what you take a humanities or art history class.

And it's like, it's this, this funny point. So I agree with you too, in terms of like that we, there's the media side that kind of pushes, uh, typically an angle on that. I think that has a, you know, a ton of challenge based, anything that's premised on advertising for revenue is going to do that. Right. And that's exactly those algorithms because they're like.

Funneling your attention into a certain space because then they're going to either get you to do something often buy something, you know, or pay for something and some level. And it's the other side. Then we have education kind of not pushing too much in terms of like actually having more genuine critical thinking.

Skill sets, you know, sometimes until we get into university. And so there's, there's an interesting piece where it's like, um, I've appreciated seeing, so in the, on the media side, like I've appreciated finding there's, there's a couple apps. I talked to Alex Fink, of a company, uh, a media company called other web, which it is a basically nutrition labels for news media.

And so you can look at it and see, does it, what kind of speech does it have? Like, would it be inflammatory? Would it be kind of neutral? Does it like, so basically understanding, like. Or was it fact checked? How has it been fact checked? And so there's this interesting idea of like letting you understand a bit more in terms of when you're consuming content.

Like, he's like, the same with food. Like, you should want to, you want to know what's in that, that cereal. I want to know what's, like how my articles are getting made also. And, and. So it, it, it doesn't write its own pieces, at least not right now, but it's like looks at, you know, multiple sides of, of if you get like a piece or a story that like you might be written about in Fox News and CNN and BBC or whatever, and kind of seeing like, how is it talked about in slightly different ways, which is interesting.

And all sides is another organization that does this, where they kind of say, how is An issue being covered on right, left and center, but, but even that point, like, we expect there to be a right, left and center split. Right. And like the thing we're talking about polarization of top two in, uh, we're expected, we're expecting to kind of say, okay, well, I'm going to, I have to be in one of these buckets, you know, versus like, All of us are actually pretty much a spectrum of a lot of things.

Right. And like rarely ever we say, this is the one thing that I am. Um, and so it's interesting to kind of think about how we can help foster that idea, like the genuine curiosity and the humanity of someone, um, in a place like I house, that is recognizing that, like, we're here at, you know, at Berkeley and at Institute of higher education, trying to help us think more critically oftentimes.

At least, at least if I have to take that, you know, that Anthro 101 class is one of my freshman requirements, right? Uh, you know, uh, and also then like, what does that mean to have it in, in a space like a higher education institution? That, uh, often is a place where we see different views come together.

Like for some, for some people, some kids for the first time, right. You know, they're saying up top as well. So I think it's, it's really interesting space. And I agree. It's like, civility is something that we see missing and often places. So I guess, how do you think about that in terms of like, we can help instill both civility and like, so, so I guess one question is like, how long do the folks stay?

Are they there for one year, two years? Like, and then, cause I'm kind of thinking about how do we, how do we push them forward and say, keep, keep, keep, keep with that civility. Like, how do you think about that? Yeah. Yeah, well, um, so residents stay here, um, they can stay from one semester. They can stay up to four years.

And so we have some students that have seemed to, they've been here longer than I've been here. Um, so, uh, you know, they can stay for, for quite a while, I think on average. Uh, they're slightly more than a year and a half and in total, um, that they stay here. So they, they, they have a good experience, a lengthy experience or exposure to this, this environment.

And I can tell you just, and we have over a hundred thousand alumni that have come out of just my house, Berkeley over, over the years. Um, and, uh, this experience stays with them their entire life. I, we had alumni reunion a few weekends ago and I was speaking to one of our alumni that was here in the fifties.

Um, and, um, you know, here for one year 1950. And you think about, you know, how the world has changed in 1950 and how an individual's life, you know, come graduating from college, the ups and downs and changes in your career, relationships, children, grandchildren, births and deaths. And. All of these things that you've been through in your life and, you know, they come back for that, that one experience they had for one year in 1950, break them back here.

And they're so mostly connected to do what happens within this house. And, you know, part of our mission is, you know, building lifelong friendships and they have lifelong friendships. All of these people that, you know, come together in this. This special community and disperse are still connected decades later.

So there is a really special and positive that comes out of this mixing of people. And, and, you know, and, and talking to people who you disagree with, it ends up. You know, these may be your friends for life, even though, you know, I mean, the end of this place, you may have just pointed your finger and say, I hate that person.

Um, I live with them and you, you know, go have a drink with them and you, you know, do all the social things that we do or have dinner upstairs with them. And you realize, wow, this is a great person. There's only one sliver of things that we disagree on, but we can get past that. So it's, it's the, you know, and there's so much to unpack with what you just said as you were talking about, um, you know, the, whether or not we're trying to, you know, Um, teach to test and education, whether we're trying to teach, you know, um, critical thinking and education.

You know, I think that's, that's where we start is they're trying to understand what are we trying to do with education, whether it's K through 12 or higher end, what, what is the purpose of all of this? Um, you know, I spent 13 years of my life in China and in education, higher education. My wife is Chinese, but my kids are 10 and 12.

Um, so they're, they're still very young. Still asking why. Yeah. Jobs that question about, uh, about university in college, you know, you start thinking about it when they're three months old, but you're continually thinking about it though for another 19, 18 years. Um, but it's quite different. Do you ask me a year to really understand the, the You know, the objectives of a Chinese education system are quite different than what I went through in the United States.

And, uh, you know, where we were focused along, at least when I went through school, really a lot about critical thinking, um, and asking questions and challenging the status quo where in China, it, it was more rote learning. It was, you know, you have this, this, uh, this gal cow test at the end, and it's going to determine whether you go to a top university, a middle level university, or are you going to go get a job?

And how you do on that test on that one day determines the, you know, the trajectory of your life, not just you, but your family. That's pressure. So there's a lot of pressure to do well on one test. And so of course that system is going to be supporting outcomes of that test at the end. So it is a lot of rote learning.

It is, you know, teaching you, um, to, to be very strong in, um, in process, um, and understanding concepts. Um, but where, where I found they were. Where the U. S. students were weak, generally weak in math and sciences, but good at asking questions and challenging people. Um, you know, in China it was quite opposite.

They were very good about, you know, um, figuring out how to, how to get things done in science and math and how to answer questions. What they weren't great on was questioning Wah. Um, or, you know, coming up with, uh, uh, another opinion on their own. Oh, you know, you look at the education system, they were, they were designed and set up to do different things.

And so I think you have to start off like, what is, what are we trying to do in higher education? What are we trying to do in universities? Um, is it, you know, liberal arts is probably different than if you come Berkeley, you know, the business school, the engineering schools, it's teaching you knowledge, that's going to help you, you know, get into, uh, great, great positions in jobs and industry, um, and lead there.

Um, so it's, it's, you know, where do we start? I, I come from the opinion of what, what works here at I house is that, you know, we're not trying to teach anyone what to think, um, you know, we're, we're not indoctrinating anybody. Yeah. And, you know, if, if that's your goal. Kindergarten, you know, K through 12 is to indoctrinate them to all believe in one way.

Um, then yeah, critical thinking goes out the window and there's going to be, you're teaching people that there's one way to think and everything else is wrong. And I, you know, you're an anthropologist, so you know, this much better than I would to go back in history and the great societies, like, you know, which great societies were built on Narrow point of view, Todd to everybody and everything else was wrong.

That's usually when they start to decline. Exactly. And you start eliminating saying we don't like what these people are saying. Therefore we need to eliminate it. That doesn't kill thought, right? You can kill people, but you can't kill thoughts and ideas. I'm sure. I'm sure that's been several movies. I certainly not my quote.

Great, great line. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, but. Um, you know, as I look back at my memory of, of history is the great societies were built on discussion, debate, civility, um, understanding, um, not out of fear that someone has an idea that's different than mine and they may be right. So I, I need to eliminate that.

Right. So, yeah, I, I think, you know, we're kind of in this path now where we're, you know, we're trying to get K through 12 to be indoctrinating people versus giving them this information and teaching them how to look at things critically. And to ask the right questions and, and, and not be intellectually arrogant, um, where they I'm right, everyone else is wrong and you're not going to move me off my position because I know I'm right.

So I'm smarter than you, it's like, wait, wait, hold on. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, um, you know, that, and, and there's been, um, there's been research done, uh, there was a report out of I house, New York. They just, an impact report they just did. And they surveyed a lot of their alumni and looked at. Um, uh, looked at some qualities of, of our I House alumni versus benchmarking them.

And yeah, they're, as you would imagine, they're more central in their political views. They're more centrist. They're less intellectually arrogant. They recognize that they know what they know, but they also know they know a lot. They don't know everything. And they're willing to listen and learn and try to understand things and continually, you know, grow their ideas and to grow their understanding.

Um, they give more in charity, they give more time to, to, um, to the community. I mean, just a lot of benefits that come from this environment that I think are, you know, things we want to encourage. Yeah. No, totally. That sounds great. And I, I agree where it's, it's like when we are able to foster those spaces of kind of intentional bringing together of, of difference and we have a ground rule or kind of a first principle of civility, right.

It's such an important piece, you know? And On the one hand, I think like there are natural questions that we would kind of point towards critical thinking of it. Just like, Oh, why does that person have that practice or that the way they're cooking that food smells weird. And like, that may lead to a series of questions of how do we produce food?

Um, you know, and why do ingredients like, why then kind of saying, am I smell weird? But then I'm saying, well, why am I saying that's weird? Like maybe they think what I'm eating smells weird. Right. And kind of that can be this kind of reflection. Well, having lived overseas, I can tell you a hundred percent what you think is weird.

Someone thinks it's delicious. Yeah. What you think is delicious, someone else thinks is weird. Right. Um, you know, and, and that's, you know, I, you hate to simplify it too much, but ultimately there's a reason there's 31 flavors of Baskin Robbins, a lot of people with a lot of different tastes. And when you think about, you know, you, you expand that, well, why are we just talking about ice cream?

You can talk about food. You can talk about political views. You can talk about social views and value systems. Is that there's a whole, it isn't polarized. It is a, you know, um, a whole continuum of differences across the board. And I don't even think it's linear where it's left, right, or rich and poor. It is this, this beautiful, um, bubble of folks that feel and think different ways.

And when you see it in that way, it's, it's easy to understand that, you know, that there's a lot going on in the world that I are not that are different than me and I'm comfortable with it. It's okay. Yeah. I'm like everybody else. I got a difference of opinion, you know, um, just like everyone else has a different opinion and doesn't mean someone has to be right.

We can all, you know, we can all have different views and still be right. Yeah, true. It makes me think that, uh, the, um, earlier this year I was talking with Byron Reese, he's a futurist thinker. Writer and he wrote, uh, he's had a lot of work on AI and kind of the changes in technology. But his latest book was, uh, this, I don't know if it was a left or right turn or upside down turn or some weird turn.

But, um, it was, it was on, like, the hypothesis that humanity is actually a superorganism. Now, I'm not going to ask you to say if you think that is the case or not, but, like, but the idea in terms of, like, how we operate at, at scale now as humans, you know, as a city itself cannot function, like, and you can't pull it apart and have, like, just the delivery system work by itself, right?

But, like, we can actually do things at these crazy scales now. And it's interesting to, to think about this idea that why do we see systems, and actually I'll relate this to like the, the, I think the good point you're making too, in terms of what we see great civilizations and societies doing, like by bringing in essentially diversity, right?

By bringing in different perspectives and ways of approaching things, like in the same way of evolution, what makes evolution work better? And what might make something bigger work better is that it has multiple inputs that are different, right? And so it tries a bunch of things out. Evolution tries a bunch of stuff out, right?

And then some things don't stay and some things do stay. Right. And that's why we have opposable thumbs, you know, uh, and, and it, it tastes for sugar, you know, it's like this, these interesting ideas to kind of think about, uh, something like how we create these intentional microcosms, like with, with a group of, you know, 86 nations in I house is a.

Like one excellent experiment of diversity, but then also this is pointing towards this idea that like we can do more and we, we, as a, as a species, we're kind of weird at this, but we're able to do more when we scale up by bringing a bunch of difference together, right? It's not about having like just one perspective.

And from an evolutionary perspective, that's super dangerous. It's like if you only grow one kind of crop and you get a bug. Or the, the season goes bad, you lose everything, but if you have three or four or five or eighty five different kind of crops in biodiversity, you're much more likely to survive something challenging.

I did research in agriculture in Peru, so this is why I'm, I'm bringing up that, but like, the, the food stuff I think is, is always very cool too, because it is this interesting point of like recognizing biodiversity works well for like mitigating, um, Environmental challenges, but human mental and kind of spiritual and cultural diversity also works really well too for approaching problems, right?

And that we also don't need one solution, right? We actually need a bunch of different ways of working together to solve, especially some of the bigger problems that we're facing. Um, you know, we talk about polarization, which, which is a problem, but it's, it's one of those, like very much we've made it by saying here's the, here's the splits in the size.

But I think you're also right that the, the idea of like the big kind of bubble mess made me think of the super organism. Just like it's a lot of coming together. That is actually what is actually what allows us to change and do better at scale right in the kind of and we need that kind of diversity.

So. I'm, I don't know. I'm, I'm seeing it. I don't think that resonates, but I feel like that that's, it gives us something important to think about, like what we, what we do about intentional community, right? And why we need that, right? We're seeing a huge rise. I'm, I'm curious if you see this as well. Like we know that there's been a huge rise in, especially with Gen Z, you know, talking about mental health and saying that we need, that's something that matters to, to, to Gen Z folks.

And they want to make sure that they have either support and space for that and be able to talk about that, whether at university school or at the job. Uh, the, at the workplace that they're in and, you know, thinking about how we are changing conversations, right? To have these, these new kinds of, of spaces, you know, what do you kind of see as the, the role of, you know, higher ed and I house, like in helping shape, having that space, right?

That we can, we can kind of change the conversation. We can bring in more, more types of topics, more types of folks, um, to do that. Like what, how, how does higher ed in your perspective work to help us do that? Yeah. Yeah. Something you just touched on. Um, I was having a conversation this week with, um, um, being, uh, my age and being around and, uh, uh, as long as I have, you, you tend to see, um, how, uh, patterns repeat themselves or how the pendulum swings one way and then it comes back the other.

I was having a conversation with one of my, uh, one of my staff, um, uh, who's a few generations behind me. And he was commenting about his generation, this generation, this university age generation and talking about, uh, mental wellness and, um, how, you know, he made the comment that, well, you know, my generation is really trying to undo all the damage that your generation did.

And I, um, I was thinking the same thing when I was your age about my parents generation. And I, it's not like it's a hard shift from generation to generation. It's right. It's a slow, it's a slow evolution of, of, of change. And, you know, I would have said the same thing at his age about my parents and I, you know, how I grew up.

And, um, and so everyone looks back and, you know, criticizes previous generations, but those of us in the previous generation of like, we're just doing the best we could with what we have. Um, and yeah, we didn't focus so much on, on mental wellness as a group. We didn't, we probably internalized too much. We didn't wear, we weren't good at sharing.

Um, however, we were different than generation before us and we felt we moved the needle, moved the ball a little. Yeah. And just, and that's the perspective we need to take, not that we're just destroying all the damage my generation did. But they're just continuing that evolution. Um, and yes, you know, evolution needs variety.

You need diversity to find those better ways of doing things. And that's, you know, in the organization here, I'm all about continual improvement. We try new things, we measure the impact. And if it was a positive impact, then we keep doing it. If it's not, we learn something, we try something else. But if you're afraid to try new things because of fear of failure, then, then you're kind of stuck.

And, um, and you're not advancing at all. So I agree, like, you know, we, you have to have all of this diversity of thought. And I, I didn't come from an anthropology background. I came from a business and management background, which was, if you're a leader and you're going to make a decision, you don't want to be surrounded by people who are telling you what you already know, challenging you and asking you the right questions so that you can be sure that your decision is the right one or to be pivoted off of, well, I didn't think about that.

Thank you for creating that. Um, I'm going to make a, I'm going to maybe pivot my decision a little bit because of what you were able to bring to that. And that means you need diversity and yet they see anyone quote resources. Those, you know, diverse teams underperform, uh, you know, yeah, that's fake news.

Yeah. I, you know, so it seems to be, you know, let's just take that and just, you know, and, and just, and just feel comfortable that yeah. Surrounding yourself with difference of opinions. And civility and with listening and understanding and, uh, and empathy, it's going to lead everyone to have a better result.

Um, and we'll be doing it together. So it's, um, yeah, it's, it's, it, it doesn't feel like the winds are at her back right now with all of this. Society feels, you know, that, You know, um, you see all these, these photos of people like, this is your globalism, you know, this is your multicultural, you know, and, and, and it's always bad scenes.

It's not, yeah, it's not people coming together who are different with their arms around each other saying, you know, uh, uh, uh, you know, trying to get something accomplished positive. It's always, you know, we need to isolate, we need to put ourselves in tribes, otherwise they're going to attack us and take us over or ruin our way of lives.

Um, and that, you know, that. I have a hard time understanding why, why we're going that way. Yeah. No, I, I, I wish we knew too, it is a tricky thing. Cause it's like, it's funny too, because like when you spend more time either in an international context, right. Or with people that are just different from you for an extended period of time, uh, you, you come to kind of lose that, that fear, right.

You kind of lose that, that idea that like, Oh, someone's going to steal something from me. You know, like I'm, I'm going to lose my way of life if I, if I learn to listen to somebody else that, that is different from me. And it's like, This, this funny point of, of like, never does that happen actually. Right.

And actually you realize you're actually better off because you actually have a whole new perspective, right? You have, you have new tastes, you have new kinds of friends, you know, how to interact in a way that you didn't knew, you know, before. Right. And so it's this funny point that like, it is this very flat narrative that's like fear based, right?

That if I, if I bring indifference, I'm going to change or it's threatening my way of life and they want to make it different, blah, blah, blah, you know? Um, but it's like the more time you spend with, with as humans, with other humans, uh, that are, that are different from you, like that's not, that's not Ever really the response of like, Oh crap, I'm losing my way of doing X.

You know, it's more like I might be wrestling with an evolution of how things are changing, how I'm thinking about things. Right. But never is it like, Oh, I got screwed because I like was living with people that are different from me. Right. Um, And, and so it's funny that we let the narrative like that such, such a, you know, and I think in part media, right, that we let that narrative be so loud and common, right, that, um, it's kind of like we're gonna be like, we don't have to be afraid.

It's okay. Like, we can actually like it's, it's nice. Uh, you don't have to like go run and do something that's totally different, but like being, you know, near and with folks that have different perspective, different cultures than you, uh, is, is quite helpful. And I, and I think to your point too, like, yeah, you don't have to have an anthropology background.

Like I appreciate your point of like a business background. I think it's super important. Right. And, and you yourself have, you've worked in many international contexts also, which I think is really important. And like the, from folks I've talked to, I've been doing this podcast for 10 years and like, Folks that have international experience always do better.

And they always like find more of a human angle with the work that they're doing. Right. And especially, and I talk with a lot of, uh, a lot of business leaders too. And, and one had, because I'm really interested, well, I mean, I work in business also, but like, I'm interested in these questions of like, how do we, uh, build better businesses for the future?

Right. And like, in higher education is also a business, right. And like thinking about, uh, inside of it, we see faculty wrestling all the time with, with like, you know, how do I either like on the one political side divest from certain things, but on the other side, like I have to, you know, do my administrative work and then make sure that I'm getting the right kind of, uh, you know, coursework and research and all the, like, it's, it's all still part of a, a business machine in its own way, as much as some people might limit that.

But that's not a bad thing. It's just kind of getting a sense of, like, how do we run businesses in more human ways? And so I'm kind of curious, your perspective, having worked across a number of different contexts in, in many different higher ed spaces, but also internationally. Like how have, how does, how's that shifted the way you think about business and kind of running and leading an organization?

And also, especially this one, that's like in a, an Institute of higher education. Yeah. I mean, I think it is that, um, you know, I, I've never been afraid to, you know, um, jump from rock to rock. So, you know, I didn't, I finished my MBA and started teaching and had a one year contract to go to Beijing to teach in China.

And I'd never stepped foot in China, uh, before that. Good for you. So, you know, I was in a position of my life where it sounded great. When I did my MBA, Shanghai was in every class and none of the faculty had ever visited China. Um, and so I had this opportunity to go live there and work there and experience the culture for the first time.

And, you know, for me, I, you know, I always had a bit of a risk taker, um, uh, uh, quality to me. So I, I jumped at it and that one year turned into 13 years. And then, you know, when you immerse yourself, you know, you are very much on the defensive and uncomfortable a lot of the time because yeah, I was not the norm over there and the language challenges, the culture challenges, you realize that they have a.

A way of organizing and running their lives. That is very different than how I do it. Um, or how I was raised doing it. I mean, in some ways it was better. And then you start to realize, well, there's a lot of different ways to do things. Um, not all, it's not a right way in a wrong way. There's probably a hundred different ways to do it that are right.

Some of them may be better than others, but, um, you know, it's, it's, it just gave me the perspective that people around the world think and do things differently and it works for them. So who am I to go flying around the world, drop in this country and complain that, you know, all they eat here at 11 o'clock at night.

That's ridiculous. Why would you eat 11 PM? It works for them, part of their culture. It's not right or wrong. It's just different. Yeah. And if you're going to go there, expect to expect it to be different. And we have, there's a, that's kind of an internal joke here. You know, we have, you know, we're based in the U S and my staff want to be home by 10 o'clock at night to be with their families.

Uh, and of course, part of our community here are, you know, maybe, uh, folks from countries where they eat very late at night, and so of course they want us to extend our eating hours, you know, our dining hall hours, and I'm like, I understand where you're coming from. But when I go to Spain, for example, I don't expect the restaurants to change for me and I can't change for you.

My staffs were all Americans that live here. You know, this is a regular eating time for us. We shut down at 10 o'clock and they want to clean up and go home. And, and, you know, you've got to adapt to that too. We can't cater to everybody because they're all different. Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, I, I think I just was exposed at an early age that, um, Um, cause I traveled around a bit.

I did spend time in Europe growing up in an Irish school. And people do think differently. People have different, you know, views of the world. And I was, I never had the idea that there was one way of doing something and all these experiences just taught me that, wow, they do it differently. And that's kind of better than how I was doing it.

They, uh, or we, you know, how they're doing it doesn't work from, doesn't really seem to be very effective, but you know how they're doing it somewhere else is. And so, yeah, I, I just had that perspective of there, you know, there isn't a right and a wrong that there's, there's a lot of different ways to do things.

They, they can all be very effective depending on the context and culture. Um, and so, yeah, I, I felt comfortable being in those uncomfortable, uh, situations and, and, and learning and growing from them. Yeah. I'll tell you now, everyone, not everyone has an open growth mindset. A lot of people have closed mindsets and you know, they're, you know, those are the faculty that would come to China to teach.

And then within six weeks they took a runner in the middle of the night, flew home. Oh man. Couldn't handle it. Uh, oh yeah. I mean, it's a good point too. It's like you have to, you have to on one end also be like, be, but you have to have a growth mindset, but then also be open to that. It is going to be different.

Right. And then like. That's, uh, it's, it's like, that's also the kind of thing I think that, that like I house does a really good job at is helping all these students recognize that like, we're going to be in a space of, of difference in diversity because we have 86 different countries represented here. Um, and then there could be multiple cultures within each of those.

Right. And like. So, expecting difference, but also this idea too of like helping folks recognize that when you're, if you're in the U. S. too, there's certain norms we have in terms of like when, when we typically would eat in this, in this country. I know it can obviously be very different, but just like, yeah, like if folks want to go home at 10 p.

m., that's, uh, you know, it'd be very tough to be like, you guys need to stay till midnight. You know, if that's not a, not a, you know. Common, not a common practice, you know, it's like we're not a bar. Um, you're, yeah. It's, uh, look, it is just appreciating and recognizing the cultural differences that we all have and being flexible and, and, and have grace with other people that have, do things differently.

Um, try to understand why they do it that way and, and not judge people, uh, for doing things differently. Yeah. Um, and just giving people space to be who they are and, uh, and, and not just about, well, you. I pay a lot of money to stay here. You need to do it my way. I'm the customer. It's like, no, you know, this is a community of folks that are different and we need to try to, um, I just be ping ponging from one group to another group if I listened to, um, you know, keep it later, open up earlier, you know, uh, it's just, it's just, we have to find a place where we We can all be comfortable with the way things are understanding.

It may not be my way, but it's what works for the community. So we kind of put the community out of ourself. Um, I think that that's a brilliant point actually, because in, uh, I still like the contrast you just made there in terms of that. This is not about the, uh, the, the customer is always right. Like that's the wrong attitude in this case.

This is about community. Right. And like, how do we actually think more intelligently? Rather than calling everything a transactional relationship, because I'm a customer and paying for a thing, it's like there is money exchange to be here, but like me and my landlord, if I'm renting or if I'm buying in the bank, it's like, you don't want to just have this one transactional relationship, you want to both know them, you know, in like, in this case, even worse, like having a community as part of that, like, I think that's a really, really important piece for us to remember to that, like, we're not a bunch of just transactions in other people's lives, even though we might, you know, There might be that part of it, but like really 3D is actually what we're ultimately looking for.

Um, and like helping keep that the foreground. That's a really good point. And I, yeah, I think that's because we're, you know, I'm not a new organization. Like I keep, I said, you know, we're a hundred years old. We've been doing this. We know the way we operate, you know, well, some things have changed a lot.

Some things have not changed. And the idea that we have to, you know, try to create a space that all 600 folks can have the same level of experience with all the differences. And we rely on core principles and values, um, to do that. You know, I think that's where universities have kind of struggled at the moment is that they, you know, they, they, they seem to be flexible on their values and their principles.

Yeah. You know. Well, and now they're, you know, they want to talk about free speech on campus, and that's, you know, certainly messages coming out as, um, as the campuses are reopening after the summer break. Um, and I'm like, well, where was that when you were, you know, allowing a group of students to threaten protesting violence against a speaker coming to campus?

Where were you standing up and being strong and saying no? Freedom of free speech is, is, is vital for, for us. Um, and we're not going to let one group decide, you know, um, whether or not the speaker's going to be invited or whether or not people have an opportunity to listen and try to understand where they're coming from and why they come.

Well, you know, um, from their point of view, um, and they were very quickly, you know, they very quickly canceled people from speaking on campus because a certain group was offended. Um, they may be a very effective speaker. Um, but I, I, I'm interested in hearing what they have to say and asking questions, hard questions about why they feel that way and how they, you know, the, how do they got to this point in their life where they feel so strongly that it just, I want to understand.

I want to ask questions. I want to challenge people. I want to understand people better. And canceling them and saying, you know, I'm throwing free speech. Oh, well, it's, we do believe in free speech. However, not here, not there, not here. And now universities are trying to set up and say, Oh, free speech. We allow the, and that's the challenge is that you have to be strong with your principles and, and, and unwavering.

Yeah. Otherwise it's, you know, I think that's the challenge. And we think about how we left this, the, the spring term after graduation with all this violence and upheaval along the campuses. And you know, one thing about universities is, you know, there's graduation, everyone goes home and a lot of this cools down as people disperse.

And now we have residents coming back to camp or the students coming back to campus. You've got this political cycle. Um, it's not going to be just about election day. It's going to be election day to the beginning of January and what's going to happen after January. And you know, there's, it's, and the, the, the situation in the Middle East has not significantly changed when it was, when they left.

And so, you know, the, the cooling off period of the summer for these universities, everyone has had a chance to kind of reflect on how they handled things in the past and how are they going to handle things differently this year. Um, and it'll be interesting to see how these universities. Um, deal with the protests that are going to happen on campuses, um, relatively quickly.

Um, and whether they take the position of some of the other universities, we're bringing the police, we're clearing the camps, we're, you know, we're, um, or we're going to sit down with folks. We're going to have discussions. We're going to try to, um, you know, find solutions and then peaceful solutions and move forward.

Um, you know, which is what we essentially had here at Berkeley. Yeah. You, you think about, you know, I saw what was flaring up at Columbia university, you know, being here at Berkeley and, you know, this is, you know, student protests where we were, you know, that's, that's part of our brand here is student protests, uh, you know, and, uh, and I was expecting it to be as bad as Columbia and it wasn't.

You know, we have an enchantment administration worked with the, uh, with the protestors. They set some ground rules about civility and you're allowed to protest, but don't block that entry. Don't, you know, don't be violent. Um, and they negotiated with them and it was a peaceful resolution. Berkeley wasn't on the front of Fox news every night, which, you know, which is, you know, surprising, right?

Because it was handled well. Not every university took that approach. That is very true. And I think that it's a super valuable point, too, in terms of, you know, both being upfront about what one's values and principles are, and then sticking with them, like, as the, because these are the moments when that actually matters, right?

Because it's like, these are the moments when your values are actually tested, right? Or your principles are tested, because it's how do you respond in a scenario where, um, if you're for free speech, but then saying only certain people get to get to speak, right? Um, and then talking about what that is and why, and like, and say, if we're setting those ground rules, what does that look like?

But then also saying, okay, are we actually sticking to different principles? And I think you're right. We see it in higher education, but we also see it again, like within professional organizations, with, with, um, cultural organizations. So it is an interesting and challenging point in businesses too. They get, they get kind of under fire for different reasons, you know, but like, but still you see when there's, there's not values being lived out.

Um, I think kind of one, you know, there's, Maybe not a wrap up question, but just like this, this idea that like, I'm kind of thinking about, obviously, as we think you've touched on, this is like, we are, of course, heading into the selection season. So it's interesting to think about that universities kind of get that cool off period in the summertime and folks kind of go away.

But, you know, so thinking about, like, as we're heading into that season for folks like. You know, what do you see kind of with some of those challenges or opportunities? Right? Like that, like campuses can do to help kind of foster that constructive dialogue, you know, um, to bring those, those pieces in. So I'm like, if folks are saying, okay, all right, I got, I need to do one or two or three things.

And I can't say to those things like, what are some advice you'd have for like other higher education leaders or folks that are trying to think about? Okay, we know we're going to have either protests. We know we're going to be having conversations at least around elections and around January and beyond.

So like, how do we, how do we think about the challenges and opportunities that are coming up? And like, what would you, What would you say to other, uh, higher ed admins and leaders to try to, how do we navigate this in, in the, the, you know, smartest way? Yeah. I mean, I could only speak from the universities I've been a part of.

Um, and one of the challenges is that, you know, the loss of what, what I would consider kind of a, a campus community. Where the, the students, the faculty, the administration, everyone sees themselves as part of the same community. Yeah. Um, and, or even departments looking at one department to the other department, you know, a lot of times these things are just so siloed and so tribal.

And it's the, the administrate, the, the faculty against the administration. It's the, you know, the students against the faculty. It's, um, you know, the budget against everybody. Um, yeah. You know, and I think the, for the first part is these universities have to start healing their communities so that. You know, they are seeing that they put, you know, we're part of Berkeley before I'm part of the school or part of what my role is within this community as student faculty or, or, or administrator.

Um, but I'm, I'm, I, I put the dish with. Like when I look at politics, our problem is we're putting our party ahead of our country. We should obviously put our country ahead. They look, the most important thing is, is this, is, is this country. And, um, and I would never sacrifice, you know, um, something for my party ahead of my country.

And right now it's kind of, she feels very flipped. It does. Yeah. And there's anything, the same thing with universities instead of, you know, uh, I'm faculty ahead of the university or I'm a student ahead of the university, like, except that we're all part of the same campus community. And. We need to come together within that and, and talk about these real issues that we're facing in civil ways, you know, and trying to listen and understand everybody's perspective and depending whether you're a faculty or a student or administrator, you're coming at these issues with a different point of view because there's, there's trade offs that are, that may be affecting you, but not the other groups or vice versa.

And so the more we can sit down and talk and understand each other's point of views, the more likely we are to come together and find a solution. I think what we see is just this breakdown of any kind of campus community. Um, and so, you know, I would start with mending, mending communities on campuses.

And then that gives you a place to bring people together and start to have conversations and how do we deal with these things. And, and, and, you know, Reinforce your principle. Look, we're never going to get anywhere. If I try to shut some of you down, because I don't like what you're saying, you know, because then we're all pointing our fingers at each other.

Right. And we're never going to get anywhere. So let's just allow us to come together, talk freely, don't agree. That's why we, this is a big diverse world. Most people don't agree. However, you can all still get along. Uh, and, uh, and find a way that we're competing for resources, sharing resources that benefit all of us.

Yeah, that's the economics, that's the economic side of it. Coming out. No, but I think that's, it's a great point too. And I think that is actually super important. Yeah. Um, because it is like, it comes similar to what you're saying before to it in terms of the, you know, it's not the customer's right, but it's that the community needs to be put first.

Right. And like, and thinking about that too. I love this idea for the campus community too. And, and like, when we can sit down with folks, like recognize that we're, if we're in this together, then we are not competing for resources. Right. We are like, we are the resource also, you know, um, and that's, it's an important part of the, the thing I think so.

Well, I mean, a lot of the, a lot of the conflict on the campuses and, you know, as I looked at campus, the campuses that were on the front of the front page every day because of the protests and how it was happening, um, a lot of times it wasn't necessarily the campus community that was causing the conflict.

It was the outside agitators, people of the community coming to the campuses. Um, and you know, that's a tough one to handle because their, their priority is not, you You know, being part of the university community and running, you know, it's, it's trying to make this an area where I can, you know, get my viewpoint out there to the world.

Um, and, uh, and that wasn't helpful. I can say in Berkeley here, we didn't have the amount of outside agitators as, as, as some of these other campuses saw. I think that's one of the reasons we didn't see so much protests and violence. Yeah, there, there is. I think that's, that's a good point too. I mean, like, uh, That's a sequel conversation we should have, we, I think we need to have in terms of like, how do we think about that?

Because it's like, we do want to both build communities that are inclusive, but then also recognizing like, what is the, on the one hand, like, what are the bounds of the community that we're defining, but then also, uh, what are the, again, principles and the, like the, the kind of foundation that we're building off of.

And like, if you are coming from a different community, you still have to respect the fact that we have a foundational principle of civility. Right. And you're not, Living up to that, you know, and so therefore you can't like we're not saying you can't have free speech But if you are coming here and causing violence or kind of if you're in essence messing with the broader community Like that's a very different thing Um, and treating people uncivilly or, you know, then, then, um, expressing your perspective, right?

And then like, you get, you get like one of those, you have to, you have to have both, right? You can't, you can't express yourself and be uncivil. You have to do, you have to also be civil, right? As part of that. That's an interesting piece. Well, you know, there are, there are folks out there. There are groups of folks out there that, you know, seem to be driven around breaking down, breaking things, breaking things down, you know, creating chaos, um, and, and, and, and upheaval and violence, um, and.

Uh, you know, we, again, acting uncivilly, right? And so we need to somehow figure out, yeah, it's interesting times, you know, I, I, I do feel like, uh, I'm in a bit of a bubble here at IELTS because, you know, we, we, we just don't have a lot of, of, of what we're talking about. What happens across the street doesn't seem to carry out when they walk into the door of IELTS.

Hmm. Um, and I would hope that, you know, um, that the lessons that we learn from, from this experience, uh, in some ways translate into society. That we, there's some things we can learn from here. Diversity does work if you have just some basic ground rules. Mm-Hmm. , uh, um, and, and, and again, you focus on trying to create a diverse community that works and not trying to convince a diverse community that my way works.

Yeah. And, um, oh, it's a, it's an incredible place to be. I'm, I'm very, very fortunate to be where I'm at and doing what I do. Awesome. And, uh, it's a, it's, it's, it's an incredible organization. I think it sounds super, uh, like a, a very, very cool organization. I agree. And I'm excited for folks to check it out.

We'll put, we'll put links in the show notes to check out I house and all the work that y'all are doing. So I think, I think it's really important and it's important reflection to know too, like if we're in a space that can be an epicenter of a protest, like on a university campus that like, when you enter the door of I house, like we don't see that we see stability kind of kick in.

Um, or like the, the kind of like animosity doesn't seem to enter into that space and that, that's an important and, and I think valuable lesson for folks to recognize and realize too, like we can set these spaces on purpose. And so I think you're doing some, some great work. I'm excited to see that it's, it's kind of like they've been going for so long and that it's going to keep, keep, keep rocking.

So I think it's, it's an important reminder that like we want to, we want to do this, we want to build together. Right. Well, you know, like I said, we've been doing this for a hundred years and where we're at right now and being in the role I'm at, it's looking at the next 100 years and seeing. Yeah. Yeah. We do have this power to convene, to bring the community together because we don't, we're apolitical.

We don't have a, a point of view, you know, our point of view is bring people together. Uh, and so we can bring folks from all sides into I house and have conversations. Um, and I think, you know, part of my a hundred year vision, if you were to ask me what, what I would, that was my next question. I'd want to put an I House in every university, um, uh, in the world, you know, a place for these communities to come together, put their differences aside and try to listen and understand.

Um, you know, I think in some ways, like a zipper, you know, the I House can be the start of bringing campus communities, um, together, um, and I hope in some ways that we've been able to do that here with Berkeley and University of Chicago. And likewise, so, uh, you know, I, it's a, it's a, it's a benefit to the campus communities.

So awesome. Cool. No, I'm excited. I mean, it sounds like we need to build, build smart houses, um, and or like. Build some training programs based off of that, that we can, we can bring to other universities or something. Training programs. We have. There you go. See, already, already, ready to go. Let's chat in a few years.

Very cool. Awesome. That sounds great. Um, that'd be great. So Sean, Sean Carver, thanks so much for joining me on the pod today. It's been great to talk with you. Um, I'm getting super enthused by the work that you're doing in I House as, as a kind of beacon for folks to be able to see what's a place we can actually come together to have conversation and, and, uh, you know, bring civility to it.

So yeah, keep doing the great work. Uh, I appreciate you taking the time to converse and dialogue today. It's been, been a lot of fun. And, um, yeah, let's, let's keep rock and roll. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Cheers.