How Duke University is Promoting Civil Dialogue Through “Transformative Ideas”

HxA member Polly Ha fosters opportunities for students and faculty to engage deeply with big ideas — and also with one another.

Photo courtesy of Polly Ha

As an array of civil dialogue initiatives and centers continues to blossom on college campuses around the country, one program stands out for embracing intellectual exchange not only as a way to connect with others, but to make meaning out of life itself.

The Transformative Ideas program at Duke University — now in its fourth year — prompts students and faculty to wrestle with life’s enduring questions about meaning, purpose, and human flourishing. The program extends beyond one-off civil dialogue events, and instead embeds intellectual exchange in the liberal arts tradition throughout campus life. Through interdisciplinary classes and a unique residential model built around intellectual discourse, students learn to thoughtfully engage with one another, while faculty are similarly invited to engage with different schools of thought in the shared pursuit of knowledge.

The Transformative Ideas program, directed by historian and Heterodox Academy member Polly Ha, offers a unique response to the rising demand for civil discourse and dialogue. The curriculum, developed by faculty from across Duke’s undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, highlights the enduring value of the humanities. Through interdepartmental classes such as The Good Life: Religion Philosophy, and Life’s Ultimate Concerns and How to Think in Age of Political Polarization or the annual tech-free weekend retreat, students strengthen their dialogue skills while examining life’s big questions.

The program’s Living-Learning Community provides a unique opportunity for students to fully immerse themselves in intellectual exploration. In the Transformative Ideas residential cohort, a group of about 45 students navigate intellectual life together. Through regular dinners, events, and guest speakers, the students experience the liberal arts traditions of dialogue and self-reflection as integral parts of their own academic growth.

According to Ha, “students have a huge appetite for the liberal arts,” an observation well-supported by the enthusiastic levels of student involvement. About one out of every three Duke undergraduates participates in Transformative Ideas programming, whether through classes or extracurricular events hosted by fellow students and faculty. Amelie Grakoui, a current freshman, shared with Ha that she was drawn to Duke specifically because of the Transformative Ideas program. “The ideas explored in [Transformative Ideas] are not just transformative to their respective contexts in the philosophical canon, but also to those who engage with them,” wrote Grakoui, “to join such a community is to enter a tradition of thought that approaches education as a profoundly human endeavor.”

Ha feels that universities are “well-equipped to address a lot of current questions, based on long-standing values that we have always embraced in higher education.” As a historian, Ha recognizes the importance of looking to the past in order to make sense of the present and to navigate the future.

Transformative Ideas Director, Polly Ha.

Freedom of thought is a core value integrated into the program — an issue of timeless import, given the mounting threats to academic freedom and free expression. According to current student Matteo Goldberger, “[Transformative Ideas] never lets us treat freedom of thought as an abstract concept. It asks us to speak honestly about how habits, institutions, and even our career plans oppose that freedom.”

The Transformative Ideas program is a partner of the Provost’s Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry, and Belonging, a university-wide effort to support open deliberation in the classroom and across the campus. “Everything we do at Duke is built on our ability to engage each other in good faith and with an open mind,” said Duke Provost Alec D. Gallimore. “A university has a special responsibility to foster dialogue and teach the skills students need for difficult conversations. In programs like Transformative Ideas, students learn by doing — and learn by practicing those skills with faculty and peers.”

The Civic Life and Thought Initiative branch of the Transformative Ideas program, in partnership with Duke’s Civil Discourse Project, creates further opportunities for students to engage meaningfully with one another. Through offerings like small group dialogues, in which students engage with big questions while practicing intellectual humility, and student-facilitated “Front Porch Conversations” to promote “intellectual hospitality” in dormitory common rooms, the Civic Life and Thought Initiative further integrates the humanities and civil dialogue throughout campus life.

Viveka Mehrotra, a current sophomore, was drawn to Transformative Ideas specifically because of the program’s approach to campus life. Mehrotra shared, “I first heard about the Transformative Ideas program from classmates who described it as a place where “thinking out loud” isn’t performative but purposeful… where conversations don’t end when the seminar does. I was drawn to that space. The chance to discuss transformative ideas in community — to test them, challenge them, rebuild them — is, to me, the essence of intellectual life.”

Ha has been impressed at the level of enthusiasm from students of all majors and backgrounds, as well as by the many ways faculty across disciplines bring the humanities into their classrooms. Far from perceiving traditional liberal arts pursuits as stale relics of the past, Ha feels that students relish the chance to explore the human experience across time and traditions, and to apply humanities across their learning.

Importantly, part of how students learn to engage in civil dialogue with one another comes through observing faculty engaging in constructive disagreement with scholarly peers. For example, discussions between faculty have presented competing views on contentious topics such as U.S. politics and university admissions policies. Ha emphasized that students have deeply appreciated seeing the faculty model constructive disagreement with one another.

Programming extends to faculty events as well. In the spring of 2025, Transformative Ideas organized a faculty colloquium on “Intellectual Friendship: Fostering Free Inquiry, Pluralism, and Belonging” in which about 80 faculty and staff from diverse fields joined to discuss free inquiry and pluralism within the academy. The program will be partnering with the Provost’s Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry, and Belonging to host an international research symposium on Cognitive Liberty in March 2026, which will feature leading neuroscientists, lawyers, philosophers, and theologians.

Despite what declining enrollment in many humanities majors might suggest, students’ enthusiasm for the Transformative Ideas program shows that there is still a healthy student appetite for the liberal arts tradition and civil discourse. Such an interest in civil discourse is reflected in national efforts as well, including HxA’s efforts to foster open inquiry in higher education. Ha noted that “​it’s exciting to see Heterodox Academy’s leadership in bringing colleagues together to think about constructive ways forward around our shared academic mission.”

To truly change campus culture, students and faculty must be active participants in intellectual exchange. And as Ha observed, students have a hunger for wrestling with big questions — and that hunger is ready to be tapped into at any moment, changing campus cultures for the better.