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Friday, January 31, 2025

The Notable Absence of Dialogue Across Differences

When the Israel-Gaza War began roiling certain college campuses, Dartmouth was an early pioneer in creating dialogues led by faculty members with different perspectives on the conflict.* UCLA produced a brief episode early on just for the medical school, but its program was very limited in terms of who had access and quickly disappeared. Yours truly preserved an audio version, however.**

Subsequently, UC President Drake provided $7 million to the various UC campuses for such programming. UCLA ostensibly has created a "Dialogue Across Differences." I say "ostensibly" because there is little actual programming to show for the effort, although the existence of the Dialogue is periodically touted.*** No one seems to ask what became of Drake's funding including the Regents' Compliance and Audit Committee which is supposed to look at how money is spent. 

What brings all of this to mind is that Harvard recently released a dialogue of the type UCLA is supposed to be having. You can see it at the link below:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdmDEXatXts or 

https://ia801406.us.archive.org/35/items/a-laugh-a-tear-a-mitzvah/Harvard%20Einat%20Wilf%20in%20conversation%20with%20Prof%20Tarek%20Masoud%201-24-2025.mp4.

The obvious question is why UCLA can't do what Harvard does? Is it really that hard, particularly in the modern era where interviews and discussions can be imported from anywhere via Zoom or other platforms? Who got the Drake money? Why don't we have (and why haven't we seen) tangible results? Which individual is supposed to be in charge and accountable? Is new leadership of the Dialogue required.

Perhaps our new chancellor would like to explore this matter. ???

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/12/dartmouths-example-in-dealing-with_02027536794.html.

**https://archive.org/details/ucla-med-school-dialogue-12-20-2023.

***The Dialogue website lists a lot of non-Middle East possible efforts, although it is not clear what results these efforts have produced:

https://evcp.ucla.edu/priorities/dialogue-across-difference/.

The only program listed dealing with the Middle East situation occurred in February 2024, eleven months ago

https://vimeo.com/918557576/e75dd48558.

The Dialogue website currently lists no upcoming events:




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