Student Council’s Academic Affairs committee introduced at its representative body meeting Tuesday evening plans for a new initiative called “Hoos Connecting,” a regular seminar series that will promote intellectual discussion between student leaders on major contemporary themes. Council will host the forums at OpenGrounds, a studio space on the Corner used to facilitate communication between University and community members.
The event will have a seminar format, similar to Council’s popular presentation “Look Hoos Talking,” a spring event based on TED Talks, but will also include student-submitted questions via email or Facebook, said second-year College student Sky Miller, one of the committee’s chairs.
The inaugural “Hoos Connecting” forum will consist of a set of seminars analyzing current political topics in preparation for next month’s presidential election. The “Hoos Connecting: Politics” seminars will address three major areas before the elections: domestic policy, foreign policies and the public’s perception of politics. A fourth meeting will feature a wrap-up discussion of the presidential election one week after results are announced.
“From the topic of the week, we will generate questions from the student body that will be posed to the participants of the seminar that week,” said Miller’s co-chair Klaus Dollhopf, third-year College student. Participating student leaders will be pulled from politically-oriented CIOs on Grounds, such as the College Republicans and the University Democrats.
Politics is just the first topic the committee plans to address through these forums; the committee will then branch out to other topics. Forums will include both undergraduate and graduate students, depending upon the response. “From then on we can do Hoos Connecting: Business, Hoos Connecting: Religion, and so on,” Dollhopf said.
University faculty may also be invited to participate in future discussions.
The seminars will be moderated by one of the four Council committee chairs from either the Academic or Legislative Affairs committee.
Miller said footage of the event would be posted online on the OpenGrounds YouTube channel for students to watch after the event.
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