"Beerbohm shared the anecdote as part of a larger conversation with first-years during this fall's Class of 2029 orientation. He went on to detail the Aristotelian, Kantian, and Emersonian views of friendship. He was impressed watching as students passionately, yet thoughtfully and respectfully, wrestled with various perspectives. "I was struck by how the students modeled both the intellectual and emotional virtues that make disagreement meaningful," Beerbohm said. "It was a lively, joyful kind of argument - the kind of exchange that makes a university a university.""
"As co-chairs of Harvard's Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group appointed by President Alan Garber and Provost John Manning in April 2024, Beerbohm and Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Harvard Radcliffe Institute dean, have been working together to promote these kinds of conversations across campus. The orientation discussion was one of many that have sprung from the working group's report last year."
Eric Beerbohm asked first-year students how to value friends who disagree and described Aristotelian, Kantian, and Emersonian views of friendship. He observed students engaging passionately, thoughtfully, and respectfully, modeling intellectual and emotional virtues that make disagreement meaningful. Beerbohm and Tomiko Brown-Nagin co-chair Harvard's Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group, appointed by President Alan Garber and Provost John Manning in April 2024, to promote constructive campus conversations. The working group's report documented existing University efforts to encourage dialogue, examined how community members sometimes feel constrained in sharing views, and recommended steps to nurture and reinforce a culture of open inquiry.
Read at Harvard Gazette
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