Keene State Offers Students a Safe Place for Courageous Conversations

In college, students learn about themselves, gain new knowledge through academic programs, and participate in conversations that make it possible to explore new ideas and topics. Keene State’s Courageous Conversations meetings, which started in 2016, provide a supportive place where students talk honestly about different timely issues and topics that affect them in personal ways. During the meetings, students practice listening and engagement, develop their curiosity about the unfamiliar, identify their own sense of agency and responsibility, and have a place to be heard. Each conversation is facilitated by two people, often with a professor or staff member, who has some expertise in the topic that being discussed.

Jacob Allen, a junior majoring in communications and Holocaust and genocide studies serves as a facilitator. “Courageous Conversations is important because it gives people a chance to discuss topics they do not normally talk about with people they do not usually share with. It gives people a chance to hear different points of view even if they do not agree with their opinions.

It is very important for students to participate because they may be able to bring different perspectives to the table, such as what they are learning in a class, or have learned from a particular situation, that can move the conversation forward,” said Jacob. “Courageous Conversations have been different since the start of the pandemic, and very important and impactful. Since the pandemic, each topic has been very much geared toward what we’re thinking and feeling during this experience.

It is a very welcoming and inviting space where everyone’s opinions matter equally.”