In Fall 2024 Cromwell Center for Teaching and Learning continues its focus on inclusive freedom of expression on campus and its collaboration with PEN America. In January we facilitated with PEN America a faculty and staff retreat on this topic. This October, coordinating with the Dean of Student Engagement and the Director of Civic Engagement, we center students in this dialogue.
Campus protests, political debate, classroom discussion, and interpersonal communications surround the college experience. The Student Colloquium on Free Expression explores the inception and promise of free expression and principles of dialogue across difference. Students will gain insights on how free expression influences social progress, scholarship, and inclusion while practicing skills to advance their own leadership and advocacy in these areas. All participants will earn a PEN America certificate as a free expression advocate.
Washington College is proud to partner with PEN America, a global champion of human rights and free expression, to welcome Lara Hope Schwartz, author of Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life, as our colloquium facilitator. The colloquium is open to students by invitation and request. All participants receive a complimentary copy of Try to Love the Questions.
October 9: 6pm –8pm Plenary Session & Dinner
October 10: 8:30am – 4pm Student Colloquium
Lara Schwartz teaches at American University, where she is the founding director of the Project on Civil Discourse. She specializes in civil discourse and campus speech, constitutional law, civil rights, politics, communications, and policy. Drawing on her experience as a legislative lawyer, lobbyist, and communications strategist, Lara brings an advocate’s-eye view to her teaching.
Prior to joining the American University faculty, Lara worked at the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy; Media Matters For America; Human Rights Campaign; the American Association of People with Disabilities; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom. She also served as a law clerk to Judge Ronald Lee Gilman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Lara has appeared on national and local radio and television programs and written op-eds published in national papers and local papers of record.
She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Brown University, co-author of How to College: What to Know Before You Go (And When You’re There), and author of Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life.
You can encourage students to learn more about the program and register for the event here.
1 Comment