How Dartmouth’s Dartmouth Dialogues Transformed Campus Debate and Boosted Its Reputation

Dartmouth College has taken a deliberate and public approach to improving campus discourse: rather than narrowing classroom discussion, the college launched Dartmouth Dialogues in 2024 to teach students, staff and faculty how to engage constructively on polarizing topics.

What Dartmouth Dialogues Does

The initiative offers baseline dialogue training for first-year students during orientation and a suite of elective workshops throughout the year. Sessions are tailored for campus leaders — including Greek life officers, sports captains and undergraduate advisers — and there are workshops to help faculty create classroom spaces that invite civil debate, according to Kristi Clemens, the program’s inaugural executive director. Clemens later left the program in July to become Dartmouth’s associate vice president of institutional case management and community support.

Programs, Speakers and Classroom Work

Since its launch, Dartmouth Dialogues has hosted panels and speaker events that brought together high-profile conservative and liberal voices to model rigorous, respectful exchange on contentious issues such as the ongoing tensions in the Middle East. Student groups — most notably the Dartmouth Political Union — have supplemented these efforts with debates and conversations featuring figures like Mehdi Hasan, Michael Knowles, John Kerry and Mike Pompeo.

On the curricular side, Dartmouth faculty have introduced seminar courses that pair skills training with challenging subject matter. Professor Jonathan Smolin, who co-teaches a seminar on difficult conversations about the Middle East, emphasizes "academic neutrality," asking students to apply critical thinking and curiosity rather than trying to "win" arguments. Smolin’s course — co-taught with former Egyptian diplomat Ezzedine Fishere — meets in small groups to practice dialogue techniques on historically and politically fraught topics.

Origins And Context

Early discussions about a campus dialogue initiative began at Dartmouth in 2019 after faculty and administrators noticed declining classroom engagement. Work paused during the COVID-19 pandemic and regained momentum following widespread student protests after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and the Israel-Hamas war. A preceding op-ed by then-incoming and outgoing presidents Sian Beilock and Philip Hanlon urged universities to create "brave spaces" where students can learn the skills to speak up and engage respectfully even when opinions diverge.

That call to action helped spur a forum series, Middle East Dialogues, which brought experts to campus to present diverse perspectives on the conflict with intellectual rigor. Those events helped demonstrate that difficult conversations can be sustained respectfully, and they contributed directly to the creation of Dartmouth Dialogues.

Impact And Recognition

The program has had measurable effects on Dartmouth’s reputation for free expression. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Dartmouth’s free-speech ranking rose sharply — from 189 in 2024 to 35 in FIRE’s most recent rankings — putting it first among Ivy League institutions. FIRE cited Dartmouth’s willingness to host polarizing speakers and a major policy revision in which the university adopted institutional neutrality, a stance under which officials generally refrain from publicly taking positions on matters outside the institution’s core mission.

Donors have taken notice: Dartmouth has raised at least $29 million for the initiative, including a $25 million endowment from one alumni family. The college plans to expand Dartmouth Dialogues, bring a broader array of speakers to campus and support related research, such as studies on how the brain responds during difficult conversations.

Lessons And Campus Response

“The dialogues are not about bringing everybody to the center or getting everybody to agree,” Clemens said. “They are about recognizing the other person as a human being and finding elements you might share even if you deeply disagree.”

Faculty and students report a cultural shift: more willingness to engage with offensive or challenging texts, and greater emphasis on curiosity, humility and analytical rigor rather than immediate dismissal. Dartmouth’s leadership and donors view the program as a way to strengthen academic inquiry, protect free expression on campus and equip students with lifelong civic skills.