Jeffrey R. Baker (Pepperdine; Google Scholar) & Tanya Asim Cooper (Pepperdine; Google Scholar), Open Conversations: Constructing Tradition, Growing Discourse, Nurturing Democracy:

[A]t our first Open Dialog, … [o]ver fifty college students attended, and we set out some easy steerage. This was not a instructing second for the college, and it was not a debate. It was a dialog, discourse to share views, a chance to talk and pay attention, to have interaction throughout distinction, to present voice to ache and anger, to discover paths ahead, all from the scholars’ views and experiences. With common prompts and lightweight moderation whereas breaking bread collectively, the dialog was wealthy, crucial, vibrant, heartfelt, and severe. It didn’t repair all the points or resolve all the strain inside our faculty, however it was a second of real neighborhood combating itself however refusing to alienate one another. 

After that first Open Dialog, we continued to supply them when controversies erupted nationally or domestically, refining the method. … The broad goal for Open Conversations is to construct a wholesome tradition inside our regulation college neighborhood. It isn’t to resolve each challenge or to have interaction in antagonistic debate; there are many different alternatives for that in regulation college. Slightly, it’s to counterpoint our discourse with care, respect, and dignity, even over essentially the most contentious points. Moderation and centrism are additionally not the goals; college students advocate and argue in Open Conversations with conviction however inside a framework that goals to carry our shared life on the coronary heart of our discussions. In our present nationwide season of utmost polarization, brutal partisanship, private antagonism, and so-called “cancel tradition” (all of which have been matters of our discussions), the Open Conversations are counter-cultural workout routines in democratic engagement. 

To those ends, we developed a apply of lightly-moderated discussions over lunch round curated matters with essential floor guidelines for the dialog. We usually have fifty to sixty college students and one other ten employees and school within the room. The bottom guidelines are “conversational harnesses” to protect the goals of discourse and engagement, and we share them on the prime of every open dialog:

We go a microphone across the room to make sure that one individual speaks at a time (just like the conch rule within the first, happier a part of Lord of the Flies) and to advertise accessibility and clear communication. On very uncommon events, the moderator could intervene if a pupil transgresses a floor rule or if the dialog turns personally confrontational. Typically the moderators, college, or employees in attendance will take part within the dialog itself, however we attempt to preserve our feedback restricted to asking comply with up questions, offering factual or historic context, or figuring out constructive threads working by the scholars’ contributions.

After everybody will get their meals and we now have defined the bottom guidelines, we introduce the subject for the day with a couple of common prompts to get the dialog began. We take actual care in choosing matters; the range council meets month-to-month, normally the week earlier than the Open Dialog, to contemplate the recent matters of the day. We don’t essentially choose matters which might be divisive on partisan strains, however we choose matters which might be instantly controversial, critically fascinating, or common to the regulation pupil expertise.  …

Individuals speaking collectively over a meal will not be novel or revolutionary, however it’s historical and radical. After all, we’ve had combined outcomes. Some conversations are vibrant, energetic, crucial, and artistic. Some are chilled and reticent; some veer into private confrontation. Our hope is that merely holding Open Conversations and making an attempt the train indicators the values and aspirations of our neighborhood. We purpose to contribute to a strong, beneficiant, and very important tradition of engagement throughout the regulation college, and we hope that this fashions the perfect form of tradition potential in our various communities. If our college students can expertise the work of exhausting conversations along with constructive advocacy and important, benevolent disagreement, we hope it’ll equip them for this work as public residents of their profession.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/06/open-conversations-at-pepperdine-caruso-law-school-building-culture-developing-discourse.html