Tisch College dives into how Distinguished Speakers are chosen

On a college campus, a unique opportunity presents itself: attending free talks from a variety of speakers. This semester, speakers at Tufts have ranged from Republican political consultant Karl Rove to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Although many departments at Tufts organize campus speakers, the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life has hosted many prominent speakers through its Presidential Town Hall series and Tisch College Distinguished Speakers series, including presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke and civil rights activist Tarana Burke.

Jessica Byrnes, special projects administrator for Tisch College, mentioned that one of the most difficult aspects about the process of inviting campus speakers is bridging the ideological gap.

“Certainly, Tufts is a more liberal campus; I was a student here. [The] Tisch [College] is non-partisan but it can always be tough at Tufts, in Boston and even Massachusetts to have more conservative speakers come and share their perspectives,” Byrnes said.

In politically charged times, it can be difficult to maintain non-partisanship as a school. Byrnes commented on this polarizing political climate and her experiences seeing speakers as a student at Tufts.

“Finding conservative voices that students will want to hear from and will be a valuable experience for the Tufts community is challenging. As a student here, some of the most memorable events that I went to were the people I actually vehemently disagreed with. Hearing their perspective was useful and challenged me to make my argument of why I believed a certain way stronger,” she said.

Byrnes also mentioned the difficulty of obtaining such distinguished speakers.

“For every speaker that we have there’s probably double the number of speakers that we aren’t able to get. And that’s because of scheduling conflicts ... It’s always a crapshoot of who do we want here and who can we actually get,” she said.

Deciding who speaks at Tufts is a continuous process, according to Jennifer McAndrew, director of communications, strategy and planning for Tisch College. Tisch College keeps a running list of possible speakers based on current political or civic events.

“At any given point, we could be in conversation with many different people about coming to campus. We’re always talking to people, reaching out to people, eliciting help from alumni, faculty, people on our board and other folks to try to reach out to people we want to come to our campus,” McAndrew said.

Striking the balance between ideological differences can be challenging, however. Arguably even more difficult is finding a diversity of experience when it comes to speakers.

“Being an elected politician is not the only way to contribute to civic and democratic life in this world. We want to think about those who represent all those different pathways to civic life,” she said.

One example of such a speaker that McAndrew mentioned is chef José Andrés.

“He is an entrepreneur, a very successful one, and now he is using his wealth and privilege to serve people in extreme need and disaster zones through his World Central Kitchen,” she said.

In addition to seeking out diversity in speaker choices, the Tisch College also tries to include students in the process, whether that be by suggesting speakers or helping in the planning process.

“We love to hear from students on who they would like to hear speak. We also like to hear from students on logistics. For example, ‘this is a really bad time’ or ‘why don’t you ever bring speakers on weekends.’ That kind of feedback would be really helpful as well,” McAndrew said.

Another way that students can get involved in the speaker process is through a closed panel. For its Distinguished Speaker Series,Tisch College asks the speakers to hold closed-press roundtable events, as well as public forums. Students are selected to be part of these smaller, private events through recommendations from the event co-sponsors or simply by emailing Tisch College.

“If you see that, for example, Eric Holder is coming to campus and you are interested in talking to that person as part of the round-table, definitely let us know. We can’t always make it happen, but we try very hard,” she said.

Timothy Leong had the opportunity to meet Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). When asked about the process of sitting in on the roundtable, Leong, a sophomore, said it was just a matter of asking.

“I’ve been to a few of the events before, so I knew that Jess Byrnes was the person to talk to. I emailed her asking if there was going to be a meet-and-greet before Markey’s speech and she said yes. It was a very simple process,” Leong said.

According to Leong, this roundtable event was a very different environment than the larger public forum.

“Markey came and talked to us a little bit individually, which was really cool since there were only about 20 students there. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to ask questions. He told us a little more about what he has done with respect to the Green New Deal and why he was visiting Tufts,” he said.

Leong also commented on the interesting, more informal dynamic he witnessed between Markey and the students.

“In the roundtable, we really got the vibe of his personality and how he interacts with constituents. He’s running for re-election, so seeing him interact with potential voters was cool,” he said.

Tisch College hosts speakers mainly through the Distinguished Speaker Series, which is comprised of three to four events per semester. This program is co-sponsored by the Provost’s Office, although each individual event is separately co-sponsored by relevant student groups. They also host speakers through the Presidential Town Hall Series and the Civic Life Lunch Series.

“A lot of environmental groups and offices co-sponsored Markey’s talk because it was specifically about his role in the Green New Deal. We had different co-sponsors for Karl Rove, for example,” McAndrew said.

Many of the speakers who come to Tufts speak about political or politically-related topics. According to Byrnes, students should try to consider other perspectives beyond their own beliefs when choosing which talks to attend.

“I would encourage students to go to a speaker who they disagree with, whether that is on the far-right or the far-left — and we’ve had speakers on the far-left who have garnered criticism from students. It’s really an opportunity to challenge them and ask thought-provoking questions and either hone your argument or consider their perspective,” Byrnes said.