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At St. Olaf College, students show up at the polls in numbers that lead the nation.

That civic engagement on campus is driven by student election ambassadors who encourage other students to vote in an entirely nonpartisan approach, and a wide range of programming that encourages a more open, inquisitive approach to political discussions. As a result, nearly 90 percent of St. Olaf students voted in the 2020 presidential election. 

“In addition to the great participatory culture at St. Olaf, we’re also working to create a culture that promotes dialogue, open-mindedness, and the ability to have rich conversations across divisions.”

Institute for Freedom and Community Director Christopher Chapp

“We don’t get to the high numbers that we have as a blip,” Academic Civic Engagement Program Director Alyssa Melby told Minnesota Public Radio in a recent feature story on the St. Olaf election project. “There’s been a really strong and long history of civic engagement at the college — that’s through faculty talking about it with their students, students talking with each other about voting and politics.”

With another presidential election approaching this fall, St. Olaf is once again hosting a wide range of programming to inform and engage students.

“In addition to the great participatory culture at St. Olaf, we’re also working to create a culture that promotes dialogue, open-mindedness, and the ability to have rich conversations across divisions,” says Professor of Political Science Christopher Chapp, the Morrison Family Director of the Institute for Freedom and Community.

On March 12, the St. Olaf Institute for Freedom and Community hosted Mónica Guzmán, a senior fellow for public practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, and the author of I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. Through a public lecture and a set of workshops for students and faculty on navigating a politically divided America, Guzmán made the case that there’s a simple way to navigate politics in a nonpartisan way: practicing curiosity. 

“Guzman’s workshop and lecture was focused on conversation, and how our natural curiosity can help us overcome the divisive rancor present in politics these days,” Chapp says.

Guzmán led a larger group discussion and hosted two smaller, interactive workshops for students and faculty that offered the opportunity to practice letting curiosity, not assumptions, guide discussions with others. During her visit, the Institute for Freedom and Community hosted a conversation between conservative and liberal students to put those interaction skills into practice. Guzmán also spoke with MPR News about her approach to navigating conversational tension.  

“If you come into a conversation of disagreement, you can feel this urge that you just want this person to change their mind,” Guzmán tells MPR News. “Going into a conversation really wanting to change people pretty much guarantees that it’s not going to work, and you’re probably going to push them away. You’re not going to learn about them, but more importantly, they’re not going to learn about you.”

“I think everyone likes to believe they are not contributing to polarization, but every assumption we make contributes. [The workshop led by Mónica Guzmán] made me consider how I can catch myself making assumptions and potentially ask questions instead.”

Alli Hering ’25

In her smaller workshops, Guzmán highlighted the ways in which, without noticing, it is easy to live in a constant state of making assumptions. Even beyond the context of politics, she says that when listening to someone speak, the brain is subconsciously filling in the details that are not being explicitly stated in order to create a mental image that makes sense. To illustrate this, she asked the group to perform an exercise with a partner, where one person explains their favorite childhood memory and the other is challenged to ask the questions that they are potentially assuming for themselves. 

“I liked her framing of assumptions as questions we haven’t asked, and the need to turn those assumptions into questions in order to understand across differences,” says Associate Director of Writing, Speaking, and Academic Support and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Writing Bridget Draxler. 

Guzmán provided several other partner-based activities to hone in on her central philosophy: that active listening rooted in curiosity is the best way to navigate conversations, especially those that are challenging. Transitioning the conversation into the political realm, Guzmán provided several prompts that were more polarizing, ranging in seriousness from “Cats are better than dogs” to “America is the greatest country in the world.” Workshop participants were asked to each choose a phrase and explain their opinion to their partner, who was only allowed to ask questions about that person’s perspective. 

“It was a simple exercise with a significant impact,” says Director of Business and Management Studies Sian Christie. “It has given me the confidence to tackle some of those politically difficult conversations with a sense of curiosity and compassion.”

Guzmán’s philosophy prompts students to be thinking more about their role in divisive politics, both on and off the Hill. 

“I think everyone likes to believe they are not contributing to polarization, but every assumption we make contributes,” says Alli Hering ’25. “It made me consider how I can catch myself making assumptions and potentially ask questions instead.”