Hi everyone! My name is Savannah Dye, and I’m a Junior Political Science student at ATU. The department of History and Political Science, The College of Arts and Humanities, Student Services, along with several other moving parts have very graciously made it possible for Allison Edwards and I to attend the 2017 Inauguration Seminar at the Washington Center here in Washington D.C. The goal of the seminar is to round up college students from all over the country in an attempt to get us all talking.
But why does this matter?
The fact of the matter is, most of us have lived in the same place for a while. We surround ourselves with the same group of people that we have for years, we live in the same place, and we hear the same political opinions over and over again from our families. By throwing a diverse group of college kids in a room together and making them discuss their political views, The Washington Center is promoting the civil discussion of opposing political viewpoints, which is something we’d normally cringe at the thought of. In a classroom, we are able to learn fundamental characteristics of the major American political parties, the ins and outs of American Government, and the historical events that shaped the policies that are in place today. Classroom-style learning is the foundation of a formal education, however, hands-on experience in your field is something that will elevate your understanding to an even higher degree.
The way that this seminar works is that starting at 9:00 a.m., all of the seminar attendees (around 350 students) gather in a big room to hear lectures from different speakers. Today, our speaker was documentary filmmaker Julie Winokur, and we were able to screen her newest documentary called “Bring it to the Table.” Julie first explained her motivations behind creating this documentary. She said that one day her son told her that she was politically intolerant, and this opened her eyes to the very visible close-mindedness that we experience in American politics, namely across party lines. She then decided that she needed to travel the country and interview different people with different political affiliations along the way in order to promote healthy, respectful political conversations between people with viewpoints that oftentimes contradict each other. In my opinion, this is something that we should all be doing. Too often, we are quick to shut down someone else’s opinion if it differs from our own. Particularly concerning politics, we don’t like to be challenged in our beliefs. By purposefully engaging others who have opposing political viewpoints in respectful conversations, you are less likely to shrug off ideas solely because they come from across party lines. When you are able to understand other perspectives is when you truly grow in your own beliefs, or possibly even change your mind about certain issues. An article in the NY Times written by Lee Drutman entitled “The Divided States of America” says, “Rather than being one two-party nation, we are becoming two one-party nations.” This couldn’t be more true. Given the increasingly polarized nature of our country, understanding what motivates the other side of the aisle in terms of ideology and policy-making has never been more important. Verbal communication is one of the easiest things we can use to serve our communities, and we shouldn’t wait any longer.
Around 2:30 p.m., we divided into our small groups to go on a bus tour around the city. We stopped at the Korean War Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, WWII Memorial, FDR Memorial, MLK Jr. Memorial, and the Iwo Jima Memorial. We were able to drive by the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and many other statues throughout the city. it is one thing to see these memorials and statues in a textbook, but it’s a completely different story when you are gazing up at them in awe while you stand directly underneath. By doing so, we are able to take what we’ve learned about these events and important individuals and truly appreciate what the monuments were there for, and why they were deserved in the first place. For instance, it’s one thing to hear how many soldiers are still missing in action from the Vietnam War in a class lecture, but it’s much more powerful to walk alongside the wall of the names of soldiers. Walking to and from these monuments like many influential people from history have before us is a truly empowering experience.
