Our Origins
Our Origins
“Intellectual Vitality” captures the College’s commitment to a culture sustained by academic freedom and enlivened by free expression, open inquiry, and civil discourse. The term was coined by a group of students dissatisfied by the conversations they were having on campus.
They were encountering in their courses challenging ideas and unsettling facts—but the class discussion tended to converge too quickly on a single point of view. They were surrounded in their entryways by people from all around the world and all walks of life—but there was a general reluctance to speak across lines of difference. Because of this, these students felt that they weren’t realizing the full promise of a Harvard College education.
One by one, in 2021, these students began confiding their dissatisfactions in Rakesh Khurana, the Danoff Dean of Harvard College. He listened to them and encouraged them to start talking with one another.
Soon, he and the students were gathering over meals, and they were joined by faculty who had similar concerns. These faculty were also dissatisfied with the conversations happening on campus; they, too, were reluctant to speak about more controversial issues for fear of public condemnation.
Through these meetings, over many months, there emerged a shared sense of what these students and faculty wanted Harvard College to be. In 2023, the students drafted a manifesto calling for “intellectual vitality”, which they defined as a “spirit of rigor, charity, and open exploration in classrooms, student organizations, and social interactions.”
It all started with an email
A few years back, a group of students told us they wanted more—more depth, more authenticity, more chances to explore curiosity, and to connect across differences. Watch the video to hear how it all began.
Implementation
Goal: Gauging the extent of the challenge and identifying the obstacles we face.
Initiatives:
- Conducting conversations about the current state of campus discourse with groups of students, faculty, alumni, families, and staff.
- Surveying graduating seniors to establish a baseline of how many of them feel that they can express themselves freely on campus.
Goal: Uniting the Harvard College community around a commitment to intellectual vitality.
Initiatives:
- Introducing the concept of intellectual vitality through a media campaign and marquee events
- Training College staff and student leaders on the importance of free speech and academic freedom
- Hosting an array of voluntary events that encourage students to have conversations across lines of difference.
Goal: Ensuring that intellectual vitality pervades all aspects of the Harvard College experience.
Initiatives:
- Foregrounding intellectual vitality at Visitas and Orientation
- Teaching the skills of constructive dialogue through pre-orientation training
- Teaching the skills of civil discourse in Expository Writing and reinforcing those skills in General Education courses
- Teaching how to engage in civil discourse through sponsored programs of the Fellows in Values Engagement
- Modeling ways in which student organizations can promote a free and respectful exchange of ideas by establishing operating standards and group norms that encourage honest inquiry, accommodate divergent points of view whenever possible, and create a welcoming and open environment for all students
- Publicizing students' own experiences of intellectual vitality.
Goal: Confirming whether these interventions are making a difference or whether we should adjust our approach.