For years, Quincy Bevely, Ph.D., assistant vice president for institutional diversity, and Nick Longo, Ph.D. '96, professor of global studies and public and community service studies, have taught the Dialogue, Inclusion, Democracy course together, teaching students across academic disciplines to solve public problems through dialogue and deliberation. Now, with the help of a $250,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, they are helping faculty, staff, and students embed these techniques in other classes, on campus, and in their student organizations.
Show Notes
For years, Quincy Bevely, Ph.D., assistant vice president for institutional diversity, and Nick Longo, Ph.D. '96, professor of global studies and public and community service studies, have taught the Dialogue, Inclusion, Democracy course together, teaching students across academic disciplines to solve public problems through dialogue and deliberation. Now, with the help of a $250,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, they are helping faculty, staff, and students embed these techniques in other classes, on campus, and in their student organizations.
Creators & Guests
Host
Liz Kay
Director of Social Media & Special Projects
Producer
Chris Judge
Multimedia and Live Event Producer
What is Providence College Podcast?
The Providence College Podcast features interviews with interesting members of the Friar Family. These in-depth conversations with PC students, Dominicans, faculty, staff, and alumni provide a rich look into the lives of noteworthy Friars. Occasionally we will also bring you on-campus lectures and presentations. Go Friars!
00;00;01;12 - 00;00;20;20
Liz Kay
Hello and welcome to the Providence College podcast. I'm your host, Liz Kay, and I'm joined by producer Chris Judge of the Class of 2005 here on the Providence College podcast, we bring you interesting stories from the Friar family. This week, we're talking with Nick Longo, professor of food studies and public and community service studies in Quincy Beverly, assistant vice president for Institutional Diversity.
00;00;21;15 - 00;00;48;24
Liz Kay
Longo and Beverly have co-taught a Dialog Inclusion Democracy course for more than five years. The goal of the class is to prepare students to solve public problems through dialog and deliberation. They recently got the opportunity to extend this work beyond their own classroom. They were awarded a $250,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. Their mission is to help faculty, staff and student leaders promote civil discourse in their classes, on campus and in student organizations.
00;00;49;05 - 00;00;50;19
Liz Kay
Quincy, Nick, thanks so much for joining us.
00;00;50;25 - 00;00;51;27
Quincy Bevely
Thank you for having us.
00;00;52;01 - 00;00;53;19
Nick Longo
Thanks so much for having us, Liz.
00;00;53;23 - 00;00;57;13
Liz Kay
So what inspired you to develop this course and what were your goals when you first started it?
00;00;58;07 - 00;00;59;29
Quincy Bevely
For me to get this off me, yeah.
00;00;59;29 - 00;01;00;27
Nick Longo
You go first, Quincy.
00;01;01;01 - 00;01;28;06
Quincy Bevely
Absolutely. Thank you. So my inspiration was the man that we're talking to, Nick. Just kidding. Which is I love him, which truly started over a casual conversation in a glass of wine at Nick's house of the former chief diversity officer, Rafael Zapata was on his way out of college, and I had got invited to his going away party, which was at Nick Longo's house, and had no idea who Nick Longo was.
00;01;28;06 - 00;02;00;17
Quincy Bevely
But Rafael did an introduction of the two of us on his way out, and we just started discussing themes that were emerging on campus, conversations that were happening, and one of it being a bulletin board around same sex marriage and conversations that were ensuing on campuses thereafter. And we thought these dialogs across differences were a great opportunity for the community to come together around disputed questions, but also to really build community around difference in recognizing and appreciate.
00;02;00;17 - 00;02;25;00
Quincy Bevely
And so the inspiration for the course truly was the culture and climate of the campus at that very time. And as far as, you know, goals, outcomes, we always like to say that when folks ask us what are we teaching or what the syllabus looks like, we say we have them at the student yet. So the goals and outcomes became a co-creative and collective space of students and us as faculty.
00;02;25;00 - 00;02;42;03
Quincy Bevely
Staff, creating what that will look like for the project. You know, what are some community rules we have around dialogs? When we say inclusion, what does that truly mean and what does equity look like for different members of the college community? So it's co-creative space and co-develop space with the students and ourselves.
00;02;42;12 - 00;02;53;00
Liz Kay
Why do you think this course was necessary? What are some of the reasons why? We don't have a lot of practice talking to people who think differently than ourselves?
00;02;53;25 - 00;03;12;26
Nick Longo
That's a great question. Yeah. So as we were developing this course, one of the things that we wanted to do was to put it in the Cornerstone program at Providence College. So we wanted this to be a colloquium in the development of Western civilization, because we didn't want it to be just, you know, a self-selected group of students who would come into the class.
00;03;12;27 - 00;03;33;18
Nick Longo
We wanted this to be in general education and be something that really brought together a broad spectrum of Providence College students, because that's part of the real challenge, I think, in our society is, you know, talking with people and having conversations and engaging with people who are different from us, who aren't part of our crew, that I think has become magnified with social media.
00;03;34;14 - 00;03;54;25
Nick Longo
But kind of one of our mantras for this course and for our work together comes from Beverly Tatum. And she says, You know, you can't solve a problem if you can't talk to you, if you can't talk about it. And so so we think about, you know, all these wicked problems, these real challenges we have in society from, you know, racism, climate change.
00;03;54;25 - 00;04;21;10
Nick Longo
You know, if we're going to really do something about those problems, we have to learn to talk to each other, find common ground, and then work collaboratively to solve them. So with this class, we're really trying to give students the tools and the skills to be able to do that, to learn that there's a whole tradition around deliberative democracy, around how you, you know, collectively we do participation by people in decision making and then to teach them actually some practical skills around that.
00;04;21;10 - 00;04;43;22
Nick Longo
And it comes from different areas. It comes from the DIY work that, you know, Quincy brings such expertize in. It comes from civic education. It comes from social psychology. So we're bringing together different research sets, and we're trying to introduce us to students and then teach them to this set of skills where they can talk across differences and then be able to go from, you know, conversations to action.
00;04;43;22 - 00;04;46;04
Nick Longo
And really solving those really difficult problems we have.
00;04;46;17 - 00;04;58;04
Liz Kay
Are the concerns or the inability to talk about these difficult problems? Is that something that's unique to PC and PC students or is that something that we're all struggling with?
00;04;58;25 - 00;05;27;07
Quincy Bevely
Absolutely not. It's not unique to us in any way. I like to believe that we are a microcosm of the broader society, of the issues that we wrestle with as polarized as this country is. So as PC, I do believe that PC is a unique setting to have these conversations. We think about our Catholic and Dominican mission and we think about how it is welcoming to all believers, no matter where you are and in the process of your faith.
00;05;27;18 - 00;05;38;24
Quincy Bevely
So I think it's unique in that sense, but I think the challenges or the dispute or the questions that we grapple with almost about what's going on in the broader society outside of PC.
00;05;39;04 - 00;06;07;19
Nick Longo
I mean, if you look at national surveys like Harry's been doing surveys of income in college students for 50 years, and the recent group of college students is the most polarized they've had in all their history. So this is this is kind of a larger challenge that we see at Providence College. But at the same time, like Quincy says, we think this is a unique space to be doing this as a Catholic Dominican institution where this really, you know, we want to see kind of build on that commitment to the conversations and learning around disputed questions.
00;06;08;00 - 00;06;13;22
Nick Longo
So it's both kind of a broader societal problem, but we think that Providence College has some unique insight to add to it.
00;06;13;28 - 00;06;25;19
Liz Kay
So unfortunately, most of our listeners probably won't have the opportunity to enroll in the course if they've already graduated from Providence College, if they're alumni, if their parents. Can you share the some of the practices you're trying to foster within these students?
00;06;26;01 - 00;06;52;02
Quincy Bevely
So one would be active citizenship and engagement. We're a college that talks a lot about Veritas, which is the search for truth. So we wait until intellectual curiosity with our students. We allow the to come in to the space and be the authentic selves and to present ideas. And we also like them to critique the work of each other, because we think that's very, very helpful in a constructive way.
00;06;52;15 - 00;07;12;07
Quincy Bevely
So strategically, we have a set up where we have a research lab and it can fluctuate year to year. It could be 6 to 8 students, but students are in charge of one particular area of the college. So there may be a student network that represents the School of Business or student that represents the science complex, athletics and so forth.
00;07;13;05 - 00;07;36;03
Quincy Bevely
And we invite those students in is to really take their own identity with their wall because they know what the culture is within their own individual areas. And they can take a nuanced approach to answering questions, to responding to questions, and to disseminating that information. So we invite, you know, students to have intellectual curiosity. We invite them to have autonomy.
00;07;36;11 - 00;07;50;02
Quincy Bevely
One of the things that we're really trying to push this year is more active citizenship. So how do we take the conversations that emerge from the wall and how do we turn them into action on campus? And how do we bridge gaps to build communities together?
00;07;50;19 - 00;08;08;16
Nick Longo
And one thing I would add to what Quincy saying is, you know, this idea of, you know, this this civic look in our projects around dialog, inclusion and democracy. And for us, we don't want that to just be like an abstract idea. So we are definitely going to introduce readings on that and the concepts and the way different people have thought about it.
00;08;08;27 - 00;08;25;08
Nick Longo
But we want students to actually have the practice of that. And so we try to create a democratic space in our classroom and to really create an inclusive learning space and to really engage in dialog in the classroom. So this is experiential learning. So they're learning about in theory, but then they're seeing it in practice in the classroom.
00;08;25;27 - 00;08;42;27
Nick Longo
And then we're also inviting them, as Quincy saying to do project based learning. So all the students in our class are working in teams, they're working in groups, and then there are there are collaborating with a different part of campus or the community where they actually have to go out and spark some kind of dialog or civil discourse conversation.
00;08;43;09 - 00;09;04;22
Nick Longo
So they're kind of learning it in the safe space of our classroom, but then we're also stretching them to go outside their comfort zone and to be facilitative leaders where they go out and they're, you know, facilitating inclusive spaces and and dialogs and really engage in the practice of democracy. So the class is constantly a conversation between theory and practice.
00;09;05;02 - 00;09;09;06
Liz Kay
And could you reference the did walls? Can you tell us more about those?
00;09;09;20 - 00;09;38;02
Quincy Bevely
Sure. So we'll have to count them all out how many we have now. So we have science complex. We have one at the center at Moore Hall, slide STEIN. We have one in the School of Business Athletics, and we're hoping to get one somewhere soon. I'm going to build the suspense. They're not sure just yet, but it's going to be on a unique part of campus that brings a lot of community together across walks of life.
00;09;38;02 - 00;10;00;27
Quincy Bevely
So really excited about this new one that's going to emerge with the dialog, inclusion and democracy was opportunity for us to interactively engage with the campus community around a question. And the question could be a question around, you know, current culture. It could be something that's happening at PC and it could be even small things about What are you most thankful for around the holidays?
00;10;01;07 - 00;10;25;26
Quincy Bevely
We try to collaborate with different areas of the college, so we've collaborated with the Center for Global Education of a study abroad month that we invite students to put pictures around the wall of their travels and to tell stories. Storytelling is really big component of the wall, but to tell stories about their travel and experiences, the culture that they're immersing in, we that we work with the president of the college to post questions.
00;10;26;16 - 00;10;48;09
Quincy Bevely
We've posted questions around academic freedom. This highlight what differentiates hate speech and free speech, you know, so the questions could be fun, you know, tell us about, you know, your favorite experience, a PC, and then they could be things that students have to really students, faculty and staff have to really sit down with and process and talk about.
00;10;49;06 - 00;11;13;29
Quincy Bevely
And then sometimes there could be, you know, questions around trauma that we've experienced. So we did questions around, you know, the George Floyd. What happened there? We did questions around racial, social injustice, twin pandemics. So it truly depends on what the time of the year is, what's happening. So our whole motto is, we don't want to run from that bursting water, run to it and tackle the problem.
00;11;14;17 - 00;11;22;22
Liz Kay
And how do the students who are in the class kind of manage the the walls themselves? Are they the ones kind of soliciting the questions? Tell us more about that.
00;11;23;04 - 00;11;23;26
Nick Longo
You want me to take that?
00;11;24;20 - 00;11;27;03
Quincy Bevely
Okay. I continue to be white and want to talk too much.
00;11;27;06 - 00;11;46;12
Nick Longo
So in terms of managing the walls, you know, one of the some of the concepts we're introducing and I did lab and in class are around naming and framing issues, you know, learning to facilitate dialog. So we see the walls as this kind of rethinking of public space. And at the same time, there are these amazing teaching tools for our students.
00;11;46;12 - 00;12;04;22
Nick Longo
So, you know, if you have an issue like racism, you know, how are you going to name that issue? Do you name it as white supremacy? Do you name it as, you know, racial justice? Do you name it as diversity equity? So there's a lot of different ways to name an issue. So we're introducing that to our students, that idea.
00;12;05;05 - 00;12;24;11
Nick Longo
And then they're learning the art of crafting questions that can really engage different sides of an issue to talk about it. So could you imagine, you know, our first question was kind of a perennial question in higher education. You know, what what differentiates free speech and hate speech? You know, that's something that everyone in higher education in society is struggling with.
00;12;24;19 - 00;12;42;09
Nick Longo
Our students, you know, crafted that question because that was kind of a foundational question. And then of views, the responses we capture, the responses to then be able to, you know, learn from them and craft on the questions. And we we're constantly evaluating and seeing what questions work and what questions don't work. How do we get people to engage them?
00;12;42;27 - 00;13;13;00
Nick Longo
Because we want to see kind of the crafting of questions as a learning opportunity for our students and for the campus. And then we also want to see the questions lead to and kind of spark larger dialog on campus. You know? So, you know, if we have a question, you know, we want to try and connect them with speakers or other events or things like that on campus so that we can get, you know, a whole large swath of students to be able to be thinking about things that our students are saying really is important stuff for our campus to be thinking and talking about.
00;13;13;04 - 00;13;46;23
Quincy Bevely
And just to further elaborate on that, we have four specific guidelines. So one is to engage responsibly with the question on the board and keep the responses relevant. The second would be ideas should be respectful of people's human dignity with regards to race, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. There be a respect all responses as this is a free speech zone at each wall and then before being a speak for yourselves and not as a representative for others or groups.
00;13;47;00 - 00;13;56;17
Quincy Bevely
And we post community rules and guidelines next to each wall to make sure that, you know, obviously, you know, the rules of the community adheres to those guidelines and practices as well.
00;13;56;23 - 00;14;13;20
Liz Kay
And are each of the walls are there groups because of the walls being in these different areas on campus, the science complex at school business? Are there groups of people from those from those who use those facilities regularly, who engage with the walls and kind of like maintain them?
00;14;13;20 - 00;14;35;28
Quincy Bevely
Yeah. As I alluded to earlier, I believe each wall has a cultural identity that takes on a shape of itself. So if you even just go on, people watch and just observe each wall. From the moment you look at the wall, you can see how each is differentiated. So if you go to this and that doesn't make it either better or worse than the others, just for that specific setting the space.
00;14;36;10 - 00;15;01;15
Quincy Bevely
So when you go to the center more, you'll see it's really artsy, it's cultural. The lettering, there's a lot of pop of color you go to the business school, you'll see is very techie, is different. And then when you go to Firestein, there's chalk board. So each wall has its own identity. Some even have a casual space to sit down and have a conversation around the wall.
00;15;01;15 - 00;15;10;28
Quincy Bevely
So I think it it really depends on the wall and the community that is representing and that takes and it's all shared culture.
00;15;11;03 - 00;15;17;25
Liz Kay
Could you talk a little bit about the mission of the Did Lab itself and how does that parallel the work you're doing in the course?
00;15;18;09 - 00;15;38;20
Quincy Bevely
Yeah. So the mission is to create a safe space that supports, you know, the development of well-informed and engaged students through civil discourse. Simply put, you know, how we're executing that is a three pronged approach. So we use in the research lab with the students, as we've already talked a lot about, to develop the questions, to develop the inquiry.
00;15;39;04 - 00;16;09;08
Quincy Bevely
But also we are really, really embedded. It curriculum this year. So we have a faculty learning circle, faculty learning community that we work with and we meet with four times a semester. And these faculty members have identified flagship and exploratory courses that have civil discourse in them. And we meet with them, we go over dialog ranges, we go over topics and we discuss what they're doing in classes and talk about how we could use best practices that we're seeing emerge.
00;16;09;08 - 00;16;23;29
Quincy Bevely
The third piece of it is a public dialog, so working with the community, we release a space called the Mental Annex by community, our neighboring community, to have conversations with us around some of the questions that were discussing on campus.
00;16;24;08 - 00;16;40;16
Liz Kay
And this work with the faculty group is that all through part of your grant with the is that through the work for conversations to change the grant that you've gotten from Arthur Vining Davis. So can tell us a little bit more about what you're planning to execute there.
00;16;41;18 - 00;16;58;28
Nick Longo
Yeah. I mean so as you mentioned at the beginning, Quincy and I have been working on this for the last five years with our courses, with this kind of action research lab, the dialog Inclusion Democracy Lab. And we've been lucky enough to get support from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation's starting this year to launch this project called Conversations for Change.
00;16;59;15 - 00;17;19;16
Nick Longo
And so it's a three year initiative and it's really allowed us to kind of ramp up what we've been doing the lab and begin to think about how we might do that across campus and do it in a more deeper and more meaningful way in the community. And so we've been able to, you know, give our students, leaders more resources.
00;17;19;16 - 00;17;40;25
Nick Longo
So if you're going to be a student fellow now, you can get a stipend. And we're going to be able to include more fellows in the future and give them, you know, really support to do their work that they're doing. And then we've also developed these faculty learning communities that that Quincy mentioned. So this year is the first year of having a faculty learning community where faculty are coming together.
00;17;40;25 - 00;18;10;27
Nick Longo
So we have faculty from psychology, from art, from management, communication, political science, education, philosophy, health policy management. So really faculty from across really diverse sets of disciplines who are all coming together monthly. We're learning together, we're doing joint readings. We actually have a speaker coming next week and we're reading a book together by the author, and we're really trying to understand how we can embed civil discourse in our courses and what that looks like from different disciplines.
00;18;10;27 - 00;18;36;25
Nick Longo
So we also have the different disciplines saying, hey, you know, here's some best practices, here's some research from the work that I'm doing in management, and here's what social psychology says on this. You know, a lot of times in higher education, you know, learning and faculty get siloed by our disciplines and what we're trying to do with this learning community is really bring folks together under for common cause, you know, for this idea that we want to create a culture of civil discourse on campus.
00;18;37;06 - 00;19;04;25
Nick Longo
So this first year, we've got this group of eight faculty, we're doing requests for faculty for next year. So we'll have a new group of faculty while we still continue to work with this kind of pioneering first group of faculty. And we'll have a new group of faculty each year doing the learning community work. And then the other thing that is the partnership with Arthur Vining Davis Foundation has helped us do is, you know, they really helped us think about kind of, you know, how do you know it works like what some of the best practices out there.
00;19;05;05 - 00;19;28;17
Nick Longo
And so we're we've been able to, you know, work with some folks like the Greater Good Science Foundation out in Berkeley who are really steeped in the social psychology, research and how you do work across differences and actually what works empirically. So with this grant, we're going to be able to bring in speakers, bring in and do some professional development so that what we're doing is informed by research.
00;19;28;27 - 00;19;46;10
Nick Longo
And it's really about doing the kind of with our day, like we always talk about thinking about what works, you know, what works to you know, do dialog across differences and work on disputed questions. So we want to be able to bring in folks who've got some expertize to campus to really help us advance that work up at Providence College.
00;19;46;14 - 00;20;08;14
Quincy Bevely
Yeah. And I'll just briefly, briefly add to that, you know, the goal we sat down with faculty were to make meaningful contributions, address public challenges and promote the common good. One of the things I don't know if Nick foresaw it, but I didn't foresee it. But I just want to add it is the relationships that have emerged with the faculty in such a short period.
00;20;08;23 - 00;20;38;18
Quincy Bevely
And I just want to highlight that because from my conversations we've seen a lot of ideas generated, you know, across disciplines and a lot of opportunity to just sit down and say, Hey, that's a good idea. What did you think about this or did you think about that? And, you know, and these are opportunities that normally just wouldn't have happened without this dedicated space, this dedicated time in this dedicated mission to invest civil discourse across disciplines in the curriculum.
00;20;38;27 - 00;21;11;18
Quincy Bevely
So I just want to really spotlight and highlight that relationship aspect because I think, you know, this year's ten of us next year there will be a new chair. And then the following year, the third year, there'll be another ten. So not to put the cart before the horse, but I'm really excited when we get to the end and we work with, you know, 30 or more faculty members to see, you know, how intertwined and how inextricably connected will be to each other's success inside and outside the classroom because of those relationships that are happening within the faculty learning community.
00;21;11;24 - 00;21;52;08
Liz Kay
Is it just seems so fascinating that these faculty are kind of where the rubber meets the road right there of we have these populations of students that are more divisive than ever before. How it sounds like you're giving them the tools to really facilitate conversations so that they can meet each other. You know, like some of these groups in all the disciplines that you've mentioned are all disciplines where there are certainly disputed questions and approaches, where there are people haven't decided, you know, certainly in BPM, you know, there are questions about health policy that are really contentious right now.
00;21;52;08 - 00;22;10;01
Liz Kay
You know, what are the best ways to provide services to all people and equitably? And a lot of people have different ideas about that. And same thing in social psychology philosophy. You know, these are all places where people come different people come to the table and don't agree. So the classroom is the perfect place for these conversations to happen.
00;22;10;10 - 00;22;32;07
Nick Longo
They'll let you really capture that. And the other piece of that is that faculty don't necessarily like in grad school, you get trained and you learn about, you know, to become an expert in you should all kind of a narrow set area and you become expert in that and then you're bringing that to the classroom. But you don't necessarily learn how to facilitate contentious conversations.
00;22;32;15 - 00;22;53;04
Nick Longo
And so, you know, in our society with cancel culture, like, a lot of folks will want to avoid those kinds of topics and, you know, kind of stick to a narrow range of expertize. What we want to do is, you know, to help faculty feel comfortable, you know, being facilitators in their classroom and bringing their expertize to those conversations, but able to say, you know, this is a really tough issue.
00;22;53;04 - 00;23;16;15
Nick Longo
There's people on both sides of this issue. But this is both a safe and a brave space to take on those those really, you know, contentious issues. So you can't do that alone. You need kind of a support. You need the kind of relationships that Quincy is talking about. So we're creating this faculty learning community for faculty to be, you know, have a space to reflect on how they can do that and to do it really well and effectively now.
00;23;16;25 - 00;23;32;14
Liz Kay
Because the two of you have been working together closely for half a decade on these courses, and now you're also working on this grant. Have there been times when the two of you did not agree, agree on how to approach something and when you needed to call upon these elements of civil discourse?
00;23;32;14 - 00;23;42;07
Nick Longo
We don't we never disagree because Quincy's I always whatever Quincy thinks I always know is the right thing, because he's got such great instincts. But that's just like I maybe.
00;23;42;16 - 00;24;07;17
Quincy Bevely
I got to just say, listen, maybe that's the reason we do disagree, because I echo that same sentiment when it comes to Nick. Just trust my partner. So we have this joke in my house. Nick knows it already, but we call him a partner for my partner Raven. And we jokingly say that, but it's truly a term of endearment because a lot of the work that I do at PC, the thought aspect is usually couple with Nick.
00;24;07;25 - 00;24;36;10
Quincy Bevely
And so even when we're talking about these contentious topics or we're talking about differences, we find ways to celebrate. We find ways to smile, we found ways to decompress. And I think we just really play off of each other's energy very well. We've just got a unique synergy that I saw from day one when I mentioned earlier interview at the Over the Glass of why do we want to not just, you know, my favorite colleagues to work with but truly is merge into one of my best friends.
00;24;36;17 - 00;24;59;24
Quincy Bevely
So, you know, he wears a lot of hats with me. But I think is this the things that we do outside of the day to day work that really nurtures relationships like we know each other's family, we spend time in each other's home, we take time to know each other's individual story. We practice what we preach. We practice the methods that we use.
00;24;59;24 - 00;25;12;09
Quincy Bevely
And, you know, sorry to interrupt Nick there, but I've never heard you say that. And it's actually the same thing that I always think about when I think of you. I'm like, I trust my partner. I know he has our best interests at heart. We kind of just roll with it.
00;25;12;16 - 00;25;35;14
Nick Longo
And I mean, I can talk all day about the impact that Quincy has had on me on this campus. You know, we're we're so lucky that this is housed in the, you know, the Division of Institutional Diversity, Equity Inclusion, and that Quincy's playing such a leadership role on campus here. What is this, Quincy? And I say, like in classes is like one plus one is greater than two.
00;25;36;17 - 00;25;54;11
Nick Longo
And so I think of that in a lot of different contexts. Like in my teaching, I always for all group projects, you know, students are always working together because you learn a whole different skill set. And I think that's part of the collaboration with Quincy. It's like us two together. We, you know, we bring different skill sets, different life experiences.
00;25;54;23 - 00;26;10;11
Nick Longo
But because of that, there's a, you know, it's greater than two and so we're lucky because he talks about fun. Like, I think, you know, doing this kind of work, you want it to be meaningful, you know, you want to make a difference. And so those are important things to pass on to our students and to see that with conversations for change.
00;26;10;11 - 00;26;33;20
Nick Longo
But also, it's got to be fun if you think about like social movements, you know, music and dance. And the fun is an important part of bringing people together. So, you know, having a colleague and a friend like Quincy, you know, makes it fun. We are, you know, our did love is really the energy of our work comes from our students and they are just fun, lively, smart.
00;26;34;03 - 00;26;51;20
Nick Longo
And so yeah, of course, you know, your original question is like around you know, there's contentious issues, you know, but we kind of work it through and, you know, we really respect each other. You know, Quincy can speak for me at anywhere, you know, so because I just trust him and and that's the kind of relationship we have.
00;26;51;20 - 00;27;10;28
Nick Longo
And that's I think it's really important to do that, you know, to really do culture change work, you need to build that kind of trust. And a lot of what we're recognizing in society, you know, a lot of this divisiveness is a loss of trust. So we we spend the time to build that trust with each other and with with other folks that were working with the Nicks.
00;27;10;28 - 00;27;26;10
Liz Kay
Some listeners may recognize you as a classmate from the Class of 1996, and you were a political science major here at PC. Were there any particular classes or other experiences from your days that gave you the opportunity to engage with people who thought differently than the way you did?
00;27;26;24 - 00;28;01;04
Nick Longo
Yes, I came to Prominence College three different times, so like I say, PC changed my life three to different times on those occasions. And the reason I came back so I was a student here in the mid-nineties, I was a political science major. I came out of a political family, but I became, I think, a lot of people of my generation of the nineties was where you kind of see the beginning of this new polarization and became pretty disillusioned with politics and kind of the politics of Washington, D.C. And that was during that, you know, the Clinton impeachment and the government shutdown and a lot of things that have only gotten worse over the last
00;28;01;04 - 00;28;22;12
Nick Longo
few decades. But Providence College had this new program at that time and public and community service studies. And so I got immersed in kind of a different kind of politics and started working in the community and doing a will. Now, I would call a citizen politics. And so Providence College introduced me to that approach and a different way to do kind of political work.
00;28;22;25 - 00;28;49;23
Nick Longo
And at that time, I took classes with Keith Morton and Rick Bastoni, and I remember one of those classes the very first time we did a dialog, we did the National Issues Forum dialog, and we went to a local high school and actually had a conversation on affirmative action and diversity. And it was, you know, students from Providence College and students from our local high school, you know, having a deep conversation across differences and how we thought about issues of racial justice and diversity.
00;28;50;03 - 00;29;08;23
Nick Longo
And it was really transformative for me to have those kinds of experiences in the community. And then I wanted to go and kind of figure out how I can continue doing that. So I did that in grad school while I was writing my dissertation. I was in Providence and I got a chance to teach for the first time, and that's that was kind of the second time that Providence College is my life.
00;29;08;23 - 00;29;17;27
Nick Longo
And I realized I really want to be a teacher. I want to dedicate myself to working with students. So I got a chance to come back a third time in 2008 and and came back full time as a faculty.
00;29;18;11 - 00;29;24;13
Liz Kay
Well, Nick and Quincy, thank you so much for chatting with us today. Really appreciate you joining us once.
00;29;24;13 - 00;29;25;24
Nick Longo
So much less was one.
00;29;25;25 - 00;29;47;04
Quincy Bevely
Just want to say thank you for the opportunity. Always enjoy every time we get to interact or since have a conversation. So this is our first time in a formal space like this. So I want to compliment you and say you did an awesome job, well informed questions and just thank you for creating this space for us to share our work on this platform.
00;29;47;04 - 00;29;48;12
Quincy Bevely
We both appreciate you.
00;29;49;15 - 00;30;03;17
Liz Kay
Feeling is mutual always Quincy. Thank you. Subscribe to the Providence College podcast in all the usual places, including iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify as well as your smart speaker. If you like what you hear, please review and share with others. Thanks for listening and go friars.
00;30;03;17 - 00;30;04;18
Quincy Bevely
Go, Friars.
00;30;04;27 - 00;30;06;10
Nick Longo
Go. Friar, that was great.