The Office of Student Life and Formation and ASB partnered with Olive Branch Solutions to create a post-election dialogue in the Brown Chapel Foyer on Nov. 11.The hour and a half long session was the culmination of three previous branch-out chapels held for students to grow in their ability to have healthy conversation in the midst of disagreement.
The event began with opening words from Esteban Trujillo, university chaplain, and Colby Douglas, ASB president, as they introduced the Olive Branch Solutions team: Kim Lande and Scott Silk.
Beginning the event, Silk and Lande explained how the upcoming dialogue would be structured. Additionally at this time, Silk praised Douglas for his initiative in bringing this program to the student body.
“I would say that he was fully engaged in the process,” Silk said. “So, all of the planning that we did involved Colby, and he provided so much guidance and so many thoughts along the way. And you know, it would have been a completely different program without his input.”
12 participants split into two groups, each led by a student facilitator that attended a zoom training session with Olive Branch Solutions. While four trained facilitators were present, only two were necessary as a result of the limited turnout.
Kristina Patterson, a third-year psychology major, was trained as a facilitator for the event. While she has never worked in a position like this, she said the process was straightforward as most of the facilitator’s role relied on following a script.
“In some ways, it felt very impersonal, because I do have my own opinions, obviously, but I was trying to take a step back and not show bias, or not show anything,” Patterson said. “And so I feel like the training was really helpful in getting me ready for that.”
Facilitators were students who volunteered to receive the training Silk said this decision to train members of the community to lead the sessions is common within their practice.
“We just believe that the whole process is much more meaningful when people inside the community are actually facilitating and it gives us an opportunity to train them and give them a different set of skills beyond what everyone else is getting,” Silk said.
According to Philip Gamaghelyan, an associate professor who specializes in conflict resolution at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego, there are differing schools of thought on if a facilitator should come from within the community or not as the concept of neutrality is difficult to assert.
“[An option can be] where you actually do both and have people from both sides, but also somebody neutral that’s sometimes useful to bounce around, some taking different roles, if possible, to have kind of this combination that’s great,” Gamaghelyan said. “If it’s not, I personally would lean toward [having] insiders, rather than neutral, because anybody’s going to be questioned anyways, you might as well have a local.”
Gamaghelyan said the most effective dialogue occurs when the facilitator is guiding rather than intervening in the conversation.
“Ideally, you let the group handle itself as far as possible, [it is better] the less you hear the facilitators,” he said. “If you end up with a group in the end saying you are not needed, that should be the biggest compliment. Usually, that means that you are able to set it up in a way that it seems like, it’s the people that took ownership of the process in addition to the content.”
During the session, participants were asked to either respond within a 2-minute time frame or opt to pass on three questions:
– How are you after the election? How are the results of the election affecting you, your family and those closest to you? Please share a story or experience that will help others understand?
– What hopes and fears do you have for our country and for the PLNU community following this polarized election cycle?
– How might we move forward together with unity, compassion and respect? How can this moment be used as an opportunity for PLNU and your outside communities to become more inclusive and forge deeper understanding and bonds across differences? How can you contribute in large and small ways to create the future that you dream of and desire?
The format of the conversation is shaped around participants expressing personal values and experiences. For third-year psychology major Ryan Woodall, a trained facilitator turned participant, this structure was something she found helpful as she said she has felt unsafe to express her ideas on campus in the past week.
“You have to start with a story that’s human, like you have to connect it back to a part of your life that’s very personal for you,” Woodall said. “So I think it makes it harder for people who have empathy and the ability to connect to people like, to totally bash someone or totally make someone feel unsafe.”
For another participant who requested anonymity, the framework of starting from an expression of one’s values is helpful, however, it tends to limit the conversation to policies that directly affect individuals, rather than thinking of the country as a whole.
“I think that’s actually a really important starting place for people to kind of like, speak out of their experiences,” they said. “My question would be, if these kinds of conversations were to continue, how might more space be made for people who have chosen to be in intimate relationships [with people who have different experiences] and are speaking on behalf of, or alongside or in support of [them]?”
While Woodall said that this was an eye-opening experience to understand how others think, there still remains a need for civic education on campus.
“I think this kind of goes along with the critique I’d have about how our school approached the election too,” Woodall said. “I think people are so nervous about controversy, they’re tiptoeing around it and then just giving no resources because they don’t want to give too much of either side, instead of giving people resources where they can choose for themselves what they want to learn about. No one’s going to learn any new perspectives or any new information if you just don’t talk about it.”
The small size of the turnout was noted by Douglas, Trujillo and others at the event.
Halfway through the dialogue session, an unknown student yelled through the opposite entrance of the foyer “Trump 2024.” Douglas noted the irony of this incident.
“I think there’s a lack of understanding there,” he said. “When someone walks in and just shouts something that could be disrupting, [during] a healthy conversation that’s going on, like, I get it, you’re excited and that’s cool. Like you want to be patriotic, your candidate just got elected. That’s great, happy for you. But also, understand that this is a space where people have very different opinions than you.”
From Patterson’s point of view, she said she was surprised how the dialogue played out, as she wasn’t anticipating the level of respect that was present within the group.
“And I know there’s differences of opinions, we know that, but I think it just surprised me, like the receptiveness to each other,” she said.
For the participant that chose to remain anonymous, the receptiveness by the group felt conditional, as there was no basis to provide feedback or express concern at what others were sharing.This feeling, they said, was especially heightened in contexts where participants were speaking from a lens of faith.
“They were really emphasizing don’t use the “other” language. I was like, OK, can you give us something? Because there is a spectrum and there are sides, so how are we talking about that? But I think when there was sharing that felt like it was rooted in a completely different paradigm that felt just off for me as a Christian … just to receive that and not say anything to challenge and respond,” they said.
While the discussion attempted to establish a general understanding of each other’s point of view within the group, they said the effort to understand each other appears to stop when time is up.
“I absolutely believe that conversation can spark things, but relationships are what transforms things… So I think there was that, like, this isn’t even a space to challenge or question in, because that has to come out of a relationship,” the anonymous source said.
Charis Johnston 
Angelica Moser