California State University, Bakersfield Students Selected as Fellows for Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership
Eight students from California State University, Bakersfield have been selected as inaugural Fellows by the Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership (ICDP), which is a new consortium of five institutions: California State University, Bakersfield, CA (Kegley Institute of Ethics); Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics); St. Philip’s College, San Antonio, TX; Santa Fe College, Gainesville, FL; and Stanford University, Stanford, CA (McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society). The students were drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and all expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue with others across a diversity of opinions and experiences.
The Fellows will participate in a fully remote program that will enable them to collaborate on developing skills to engage and facilitate conversations across political differences at their respective colleges and universities. The students will receive training in facilitation, engage in deliberative conversations within the Fellows group, and have opportunities to interact with speakers from different sectors over the course of the academic year.
“The ICDP is a wonderful opportunity for our students,” said Dr. Michael Burroughs, Director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics, “Our Student Fellows are committing to learning a vital skill for our time and democracy, to engage in and facilitate productive conversation across polarization and political difference. I’m proud of our students and this transformative multi-institution partnership.”
In addition to acquiring real-world skills to become practitioners in facilitating civil disagreement, Fellows will have special opportunities to interact with the community of scholars connected to the ICDP. Fellows will also have access to a wide range of additional online programming offered by the five partner institutions throughout the academic year in support of their academic, professional, and personal development.
The ICDP Fellows receive a $1,000 honorarium for their year-long participation in the program. The funding for the program is the result of support from the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, which seeks to strengthen teaching and research about pressing ethical issues. The students representing CSUB in the first cohort are:
1) Jacob Richardson
2) Leah Truitt
3) Gabrielle Gonzalez
4) Aubrey Alvarado
5) Jessica Monroy
6) Angel Morris
7) Luis Ochoa
8) Andrew Velasco
To learn more about the ICDP and the first cohort of Fellows from the five institutions, click here.
