Greater Good · 12 hours ago

Five Things Students Taught Us About Connecting…

A documentary series following students at four universities reveals something that gets lost in most conversations about polarization: that bridging differences was never about reaching agreement. When Mrs. Dawn Collins - who, alongside her husband, founded the Bowie State-University of Maryland Social Justice Alliance after their son was murdered on a college campus - says "your voice matters and everyone has a part to play," she is speaking from a grief that most people will never know, and yet her words carry no bitterness, only an insistence on dignity and responsibility. Across the episodes, students discover that a Halloween costume can become the seed of a genuine friendship, that a respectful disagreement can open a room rather than close it, and that staying curious in an uncomfortable moment is itself a form of courage. The filmmakers behind *Connecting on Campus* came away changed by what they witnessed - not because the students solved anything, but because they kept showing up to try. What the series quietly argues is that the capacity to remain in relationship with someone whose world looks nothing like yours is not a gift some people are born with; it is a choice, made again and again, that anyone can learn to make.