HOLDING THE TENSION
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And we kept teaching. Not telling students what to think about an impossibly complex conflict, but giving them context, multiple perspectives, and the tools to reason through it themselves. We practiced distinguishing between critique of government policy and the dehumanization of people. We sat with moral complexity without collapsing it into false equivalence. Small-group dialogues between the leaders of our Jewish Awareness and Muslim Awareness clubs became among the most important conversations on our campus that year. Students showed up for each other across real differences— not because they agreed, but because they had been taught that staying in the room is itself a value.
What we protected: the right of every student to grieve, to question, to be uncertain, to belong.
What we refused to protect: the erasure of any student’ s identity. The dehumanization of any person or people. The idea that anyone’ s existence was up for debate.
The distinction I keep returning to is this: silence on positions is not the same as silence on values. We did not declare who was right. But we were clear— directly, repeatedly, without hedging— that every student’ s humanity mattered, and that learning to hold disagreement without losing that conviction is one of the most important things we can teach.
Making It Real
October 7th didn’ t end. It kept unfolding— through the continuing war in Gaza, through the expansion of that conflict, and now, as the United States is engaged in war with Iran, the ripple effects reach our students and families in real time. The grief is not past tense. The fear is not past tense. And neither is our responsibility. We understood that the philosophy couldn’ t just live in a statement. It had to live in practice, in the daily fabric of how we taught and gathered and responded— not once, but continuously, as the world kept changing around us.
We began building infrastructure for what it means to actually live this commitment. Faculty professional development focused
“... silence on positions is not the same as silence on values. We did not declare who was right. But we were clear— directly, repeatedly, without hedging— that every student’ s humanity mattered...”
Page 8 Summer 2026 CSEE Connections