In response to last year’s dramatic shift in campus climate, Stanford has introduced OpenXChange, a new year-long program designed to promote dialogue and address ongoing issues across the campus and throughout the nation and the world.

The start of the program

In early September, before the start of fall quarter, students, faculty and other staff members received an email from President John Hennessy and Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82 introducing OpenXChange.

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam, Jr. explained that OpenXChange was initiated to acknowledge the social issues prevalent on campus.  

“The idea behind it, or the first idea behind it, was to acknowledge that, for many students, last year was a difficult year in terms of dealing with other students and dealing with important social issues that are facing our world and issues we’re deeply concerned about,” Elam said.

Several events have already taken place this quarter under the current theme, “Stanford and the World,” including a talk with political satirist Baseem Youssef.

The Listening Tour, a series of dinners with Stanford faculty and administrators, has made stops at locations including Arrillaga Family Dining Commons and the Graduate Community Center. Each event allowed community members to hear more about the program, become involved and ask questions, and the final dinner was held at Xanadu house yesterday.

“One of the most important things I think we understand from last year and that we understand going forward is that communication is key,” Elam said. “The best way to communicate is through students.”

ASSU Executives John-Lancaster Finley ’16 and Brandon Hill ’16 agreed with Elam and spoke about how the ASSU can encourage the success of OpenXChange.

The focus of the ASSU on this topic will be “maintaining and increasing student involvement as we represent the student body,” both Finley and Hill said.

“We want to make sure that the student voice is heard,” they said.

With regards to long-term effects, they expressed hopes that some aspects could continue beyond the launch of OpenXChange.

As the quarter continues, the program will launch its Open Office Hours, where selected Stanford faculty members will lead conversations about current social and political issues, including topics like climate change, immigration and human rights. Each session will begin with a short presentation by the faculty member, follow with a question-and-answer session, and will end with a reception with refreshments to promote more personal and one-on-one dialogue.

These events will be open to all members of the Stanford community, and participants are encouraged to come with their own questions and topics they would like to see discussed.

In the winter, as part of the “Stanford and the Nation” theme, the University will host a discussion panel called “Presumed Guilty” about the criminal justice system in America. The panel will feature New Jersey Senator Cory Booker ’91 M.A. ’92 and several prominent faculty members.

In terms of continuous, year-long opportunities, the University is hoping to form a student advisory council as another way to allow for the expression of diverse opinions and to create more communication between different student groups.

Elam also mentioned that there would be opportunities throughout the year for students to communicate about the campus climate through art.

“Arts is a way to think about social issues and social engagement,” Elam said. “One of the ways students may want to approach these issues is to perform whether through spoken word, or dance or visual art.”

Addressing the shift in campus climate

The OpenXChange program comes after a 2014-15 academic year filled with increasing activism, including the Black Lives Matter and divestment movements.

Stanford Out of Occupied Palestine (SOOP) demanded that the University divest “from companies that enable and benefit from collective punishment, mass incarceration and the militarization of the police in Palestine and elsewhere.” Both of these movements met during the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge protest, shutting down traffic and leading to 68 arrests, with 11 people jailed.

Issues around mental health and sexual assault also led to an increase in activism last year. Community members expressed concern that there were not sufficient resources or support for mental health, and Stanford’s new Title IX office also launched sexual assault and harassment investigations into Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) and the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB).

After growing concern, Etchemendy convened the Task Force on Sexual Assault Policies and Practices, which released a report last April detailing recommendations on how to combat sexual assault.

Several of these suggestions will be implemented this year, and though many details have not yet been made public, Lisa Lapin, University spokeswoman, reported that the revised adjudication process for sexual assault will be released this fall.

The process will move toward combining the Title IX investigation process and the Office of Community Standards Alternative Review Process (ARP) and will use panels to evaluate alleged instances of sexual assault. According to Lapin, Stanford is also looking to hire more counselors to the confidential support team.

The results of the campus climate survey released yesterday will influence the way the task force implements the other recommendations from the report.

Measuring effectiveness

In response to the concern that OpenXChange’s goals are not specific enough, Elam expressed that much of the program’s vagueness is intentional and that the University does not want to simply mandate discussion topics or avenues.

“With creating the program, much is evolutionary,” Elam said. “We want it to be something that students feel is theirs – that they can take ownership; that they can develop it; that they can speak back to us about issues.”

Elam also emphasized that he does not want OpenXChange to be viewed simply as another administrative attempt to regulate the Stanford environment.

“Because it is community-wide, this is a response that must include students and faculty, so it won’t be something that’s top-down,” Elam said. “We hope to learn much from this engagement and to respond.”

This is why much of the programming has not been released, as the nature of the program requires students, faculty and other community members to take initiative and be involved in the direction of OpenXChange, Elam explained.

Other students do have hope that OpenXChange could be a positive addition to campus. After attending one of OpenXChange’s first Listening Tour events, a dinner at Branner Hall, Jamieson O’Marr ’18 said that, while ambitious, the program could be a success if students get involved.

“The program’s emphasis on open exchange is really important,” O’Marr said. “We need to have mutual respect and understanding in the way we approach our disagreements, or we will never get past the argument to the development of new knowledge and solutions.”

Though most of the OpenXChange programming will end at the conclusion of this academic year, several proposed classes introduced this year have the potential to continue into the future.

These classes include one beginning winter quarter called the “Ethics of Anonymity and the Internet,” as well a class during spring quarter on differing perceptions on the Middle East.

According to Elam, several other classes are also undergoing review and will be announced soon. By developing new courses, students and faculty will be able to continue the discussions that OpenXChange hopes to encourage this year.

Elam said that through OpenXChange, he hopes Stanford can be an environment “where people do disagree but where there is an informed and respectful conversation.”

“We’re in a time in our country and our world where incredible change is happening that students care about passionately, and that’s good,” Elam said. “How their feelings about such issues are shaped by their experience at Stanford, OpenXChange can be and hopefully [will be], a helpful and productive part of that.”

 

Contact Sophie Stuber at sstuber8 ‘at’ stanford.edu.