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Open inquiry and constructive dialogue

Harvard and its Schools are implementing new programming and initiatives to foster and enhance respectful and constructive dialogue and civil discourse and promote an academic culture where diverse perspectives can be respectfully explored, challenged, and developed. Highlights include: The President’s Building Bridges Fund, training and workshops sponsored by the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, and events and activities on School-specific topics (law, education, etc.) More information can be found on the Dialogues website.

Last updated April 2026 

Promoting open inquiry through training

  • Professional development on pluralism. In fall 2025, Community and Campus Life (CCL) hosted a two-part professional development series for administrators, featuring a session on pluralism and on intergroup dialogue. A separate convening of scholars and practitioners in September 2025 focused on how pluralism can help with issues of campus culture. In addition, CCL regularly convenes the Community Life Officers’ Council to advance a culture of pluralism. 
  • Training with Constructive Dialogue Institute. In January 2026, members of the Office of Academic Culture and Community (OACC) programs team, alongside staff with student-facing roles in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and staff from Harvard Chan School of Public Health, participated in a week-long training with the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI). The OACC leadership team also participated in CDI trainings in late January 2026. 
  • Constructive communication skill development. Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI) is hosting a two-session professional development program on constructive dialogue taking place in March-June 2026. The first program is on Constructive Communications in the Workplace. The second will focus on Building the Conditions for Constructive Conversations. This is open to all HRI staff, including student-facing staff, and is intended to support creating a more thoughtful and inclusive work force at the University, with particular emphasis on skill development. 
  • Conflict resolution skills. In February 2026, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences offered a training for current graduate students entitled “Difficult Conversations: Real-World Skills for Graduate Students.”  
  • Programming and initiatives to support constructive dialogue.  Harvard Divinity School’s Office of Student Life supported various HDS programs during the fall semester focused on learning across difference, including a conflict-resolution workshop.  HDS also created a task force on constructive dialogue comprised of the Dean of HDS and HDS faculty. In addition, the School also established a non-attribution rule for the classroom to create a greater atmosphere of intellectual openness. 
  • Student training at Harvard Graduate School of Education. In October and November 2025, the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) Office of Student Affairs hosted training for students in partnership with the Ombuds Office called “Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue.”

  • Harvard Law School training for staff. In June 2025, Harvard Law School Human Resources and the Office of Equal Opportunity offered the Negotiation Workshop: Navigating Difficult Conversations for HLS staff and hosted an interactive session in October 2025 on “Managing Conflict – Both Internal and External – with Internal Family Systems,” which included experiential exercises that focus on conflict resolution and promoting mutual understanding.
  • Harvard Business School Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning trainings. Building on Harvard Business School’s commitment to constructive dialogue as part of the case method pedagogy, the Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning (CCTL) at HBS provided faculty with best practices on “Encouraging Open Discussion in the Classroom” including creating space for different perspectives, being mindful of personal biases, and turning challenging moments into learning opportunities.  This outreach supplemented online training videos, tip sheets, and seminars the CCTL makes available throughout the year.
  • Harvard Business School Project Shema and Connected Community trainings. All staff in Harvard Business School’s MBA Program and External Relations groups were required to attend training with Project Shema in 2024. Additionally, HBS offers training to all staff as part of a Connected Community learning program developed by the HBS Office of Community and Culture. Strongly encouraged for all student-facing personnel, over 400 staff have participated in Connected Community trainings. In the 2025-26 Academic Year, the trainings will cover topics such as “Who Tells the Story: Navigating Bias,” “Complex Conversation Lab,” and “Strategies for Transforming Culture and Practice.” HBS has also begun a “train the trainer” program to train HBS staff as facilitators on these important topics for wider reach and impact.
  • Training for Harvard Medical School teaching fellows and assistants on open inquiry. In August and September 2025, a series of synchronous training sessions on teaching excellence, including a session on facilitating dialogue and defusing conflict in the classroom, was given to Harvard Medical School teaching fellows/teaching assistants. These sessions complement asynchronous training materials available to faculty and teaching fellows/teaching assistants on the Teaching Essentials Canvas page (launched summer 2025) within the “Fostering Open Inquiry in the Classroom” module.
  • Harvard Chan School of Public Health teaching workshops. The Harvard Chan School of Public Health Office of Education is offering several peer teaching workshops in fall 2025, which are open to all faculty members and course instructors at the school. The October 2025 topic is “Creating a Positive Learning Culture in Your Classroom.”

Fostering constructive dialogue through programs, events, and initiatives

  • Viewpoint diversity initiative. In April 2025, President Garber committed to accelerating the work to establish a University-wide initiative to promote and support viewpoint diversity.
  • President’s Building Bridges Fund. Now in its second year, the President’s Building Bridges Fund (PBBF) funds student-led projects to build community and encourage engagement across difference among students of different faiths, cultures and backgrounds. This presidential initiative has funded 12 projects from the College and graduate schools in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 Academic Years. 
  • Leadership summit and forum on pluralism and constructive dialogue. In early March 2026, Community and Campus Life (CCL) hosted a summit for University leadership focused on building a culture of pluralism. Following the summit, in late March, CCL sponsored a University-wide forum on constructive dialogue and engagement across difference. 
  • Pluralism Seminar. During the Spring 2026 semester, Office for Academic Culture and Community’s Executive Director joined a small cohort of faculty and senior administrative leaders in a four-part seminar that explored the intellectual tradition of pluralism and its translation into organizational practices. The Pluralism Seminar was launched in response to recommendations from the Task Forces on Combatting Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israeli bias and on Combatting Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim bias. 
  • Intellectual Vitality Initiative. Harvard College has continued to advance its Intellectual Vitality Initiative, an effort focused on promoting respectful dialogue, open and rigorous inquiry, and thoughtful listening through a series of events, programs, and curriculum offerings. Along with a new website to increase awareness, additional efforts include sponsoring civil disagreement fellowships for House tutors and working lessons about civil disagreement into the College’s Expository Writing class.
  • Institutional Voice Principles. In May 2024, Harvard adopted its Institutional Voice Principles and will not “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function” as an academic institution. Institutional statements on matters not related to the University’s core functions risk creating an environment counter to the University’s mission of being a community where open inquiry, debate and the careful weighing of evidence is embraced in classrooms and other settings.  The University can and will continue to speak out on matters relevant to its core function, such as free and open inquiry, teaching, and research.
  • Open inquiry and constructive dialogue principles. Following the adoption of Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue principles in October 2024, the University launched an Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Implementation Working Group. The group seeks to share best practices and to work with Schools to support their efforts developing programs and tools to advance constructive dialogue, free and open inquiry, and viewpoint diversity. An update on the implementation of the principles and recommendations can be found on the Harvard Dialogues webpage.
  • Research into practice at Faculty of Arts and Sciences. As part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Civil Discourse Initiative and in collaboration with the Bok Center and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics (ELSCE), FAS has developed a number of trainings and workshops for instructors designed to put faculty’s civil discourse-related research into practice, provide training to instructors on how to teach negotiation in courses across Harvard, and provide scholars with instruction on how to overcome barriers to civil discourse.
  • Public Culture Project. In fall 2025, the Division of Arts & Humanities launched the Public Culture Project. The Project aims to renew shared public life by placing existential, moral, and even spiritual questions at the center of our public conversations. Public Culture events are typically organized around a big question, discussed by people who disagree about it, with a humanist at the core of the conversation. The first event, “How is digital technology shaping the human soul?” took place in October 2025. Events in early 2026 have included “Religion in the American Story” on January 28 and “The Public Intellectual in American Life” on February 25, with several more to come. 
  • Faculty series on civil discourse and teaching. In Fall 2025, the Bok Center launched a faculty lunch series on “Civil Discourse and Teaching,” open to all FAS faculty in Fall 2025. The series opened in November 2025, with a session on “Competing Viewpoints, Contested Facts.” It continued in January 2026 with a discussion on “Norm-Setting for Rich Classroom Conversations.” Its most recent event “Training TFs for Successful Sections” was held in February 2026. 
  • Fellowship in Values Engagement. Since Spring 2024, the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics (ELSCE) has been engaging in a Center-wide effort to expand its longstanding work on civil discourse, including a new Fellowship in Values Engagement. In the 2025-26 academic year, ELSCE launched a new database of civil discourse resources. 
  • Debate and discussion series from Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Civil Discourse Initiative. The Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics (ELSCE) and Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Civil Discourse Initiative have ongoing programming typically open to the entire Harvard community, including “Ethics IRL” that includes public debates and discussions that span a range of viewpoints. In February 2026, it held a lecture on the topic of “Faith, Commitment, and Belief.”  
  • Harvard School of Dental Medicine working group. In fall 2025, Harvard School of Dental Medicine launched a Working Group on Constructive Dialogue and Belonging charged to work intensively over nine months to develop practical recommendations to foster a culture of pluralism and belonging at HSDM and continue building capacity for constructive dialogue and open inquiry.
  • Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Constructive Engagement Working Group. In spring 2025, the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health launched a Working Group on Constructive Engagement, with representatives from students, staff, trainees, and faculty. The working group is charged with developing practical recommendations for sustaining healthy pluralism at the School by nurturing an inclusive culture, encouraging open inquiry, and building capacity within all segments of the community to engage respectfully across differences.
  • Harvard Chan Studio Constructive Engagement series. The Harvard Chan Studio is hosting a series of events designed to model and encourage constructive engagement across differences.  Each such event also includes discussion of effective tactics for working across the aisle to make progress.
  • Campus lecture on pluralism. In October 2025, Harvard Chan School of Public Health co-organized a lecture on pluralism, together with Harvard Medical School and Harvard Divinity School. 
  • Intellectual Vitality and Free Expression Student Summit. In January 2024, Harvard College and PEN America hosted the Intellectual Vitality and Free Expression Student Summit aimed at fostering open, productive communication.
  • Open Minds in Dialogue conference. In October 2024, the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching, along with the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, hosted the “Open Minds in Dialogue” conference focusing on challenges to free inquiry and how best to foster open, rigorous conversations in academic settings.
  • Fellowship in Values Engagement. As of spring 2024, the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics began engaging in a Center-wide effort to expand its longstanding work on civil discourse, including a new Fellowship in Values Engagement. The Fellowship works with resident tutors to foster intellectual vitality by promoting ethical reflection and a culture of civil disagreement in undergraduate community life.
  • Harvard Kennedy School Candid and Constructive Conversations Working Group. Following the work of its Candid and Constructive Conversations Working Group, Harvard Kennedy School is implementing recommendations on building a stronger culture of engagement, including through new training modules on civil discourse and modeling difficult conversations.
  • Cultivating constructive dialogue, deeper conversations, and civil discourse at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) continues to prioritize public programming that models bridge-building, civil discourse, and constructive engagement across differences. Initiatives and forums include The Askwith Education Forum series, the Dialogue Across Differences (DxD) initiative, and Skip the Small Talk sessions. All are designed to model constructive disagreement, pluralism, and respectful engagement across ideological, cultural, and civic differences. The first Skip the Small Talk session for students was held in October 2025. As of spring 2026, the Askwith Forums include Dialogue Across Differences (DxD) Debrief sessions.  
  • Pluralism training at Harvard Graduate School of Education. In November 2025, 110 Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) staff participated in a pluralism training led by Interfaith America. The training used a higher education case study approach to explore pluralism, its intellectual roots, its relevance to the HGSE community, and what it means for staff to help build that culture. 
  • Programming on pluralism and viewpoint diversity at School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ Office of Belonging, Engagement, and Community (“OBEC”) is running programming focused on pluralism and viewpoint diversity in the spring semester, and has already hosted a Dean’s Dialogue in February 2026.  

Explore more actions and commitments

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