New London — Connecticut College has received a $1 million gift to endow The Agnes Gund '60 Dialogue Project from Gund, a philanthropist and social justice advocate who is president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art.

College President Katherine Bergeron said at convocation in August the Dialogue Project would include workshops, classes and events "to help students become self-aware, to become comfortable with the uncomfortable, to seek out contradiction, to embrace difference, to listen carefully and openly in the pursuit of common ground."

In a phone interview Friday, John McKnight, the college's dean of institutional equity and inclusion, spoke to two aspects of fostering dialogue: maintaining freedom of speech across political ideologies, and having conversations about race that may be uncomfortable.

McKnight and psychology professor Audrey Zakriski are co-teaching the new first-year seminar course Conversations on Race, which was launched this fall with funding from David Carliner, Class of 1982.

McKnight said the course is not only about offering students an "interdisciplinary look at race and racism in the U.S.," but also "about their own personal self-exploration." He said the latter is the toughest for students but that he's been pleasantly surprised.

"They're really engaged, they're learning a lot and they really are pushing themselves to be all in on this, and I can already see there's some transformation taking place," he said.

The seminar and intergroup dialogue training for faculty and staff are part of the first phase of the project, but the college expects more than 200 students to participate over the next several years.

McKnight said the Dialogue Project also will involve a cohort-based institute that will allow some students to go more in-depth, discussions among faculty, the ability for cultural student organizations and clubs on campus to access one-off programming, and bringing in scholars for guest lectures.

These initiatives will require more training and education, he said, and that's how the $1 million will be spent.

The article the college posted about the gift referenced Jonathan McBride, a 1992 Connecticut College graduate, global head of inclusion and diversity at BlackRock Inc. and former director of White House personnel under President Barack Obama.

McKnight said he envisions McBride as an ambassador with alumni and also thinks the college would invite him to speak.

"Connecticut College students who have gone through this program will be uniquely prepared to enter the global workforce," McBride said in the college's article. "So many corporations today are investing in programs like this one to equip their talent pool with exactly these capacities."

Local and global events give rise to project

The roots of this project — and the recognition of a need for it — go back several years, McKnight explained.

It was three years ago that McKnight entered his position, one that he said grew out of deep divides on campus around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2015.

A professor on Facebook had compared Gazan Palestinians to "a rapid pitbull chained in a cage, regularly making mass efforts to escape," igniting discussions among students and faculty about racism and free speech. Bergeron canceled all events one afternoon in March 2015 for a campuswide forum, and she announced that she would appoint an interim dean of institutional equity and inclusion while the college was conducting a personnel search for a permanent one.

When McKnight started in the permanent role, he saw controversial issues happening in the world around freedom of expression and speakers being uninvited to campuses.

"Basically, our stance is that we are committed to free speech, no question. It's so important to advance intellectual inquiry," McKnight said. But he said the college also is talking about what it means to be an inclusive community, and how certain forms of speech may hinder progress on equity and inclusion.

Similarly, the college's freedom of expression statement notes that free speech "is not free of consequences."

McKnight asks that if students are inviting a speaker to campus they think will be controversial, the students sit down with him to formulate a plan, though it's not mandatory. He said this is about safety and security, noting that if the invitation of a speaker is "likely to result in any sort of protest, we want to know that, so we can help students do it safely."

McKnight said he's proud to have the Dialogue Project associated with Agnes Gund, noting that the college has known about her interest in social justice for a while and this aligns with her philanthropic interests.

Gund, a 1960 alumna of Connecticut College, received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1997 and the Connecticut College Medal in 1984.

Bergeron said in the college's story, "The Gund Dialogue Project responds to the urgent need for acceptance, understanding, and empathy in our increasingly divided world. Through this program our students will learn to embrace difference, listen deeply, and find common ground. These are critical life skills that inform the best kind of leaders."

e.moser@theday.com