About Discussion

The cornerstone of the McKelvy Scholars Program is our Sunday night dinner and discussion. Every Sunday night, a scholar orders food from a local restaurant and facilitates a discussion on a topic of their choosing. The time allocated for our dinner-discussions is 2 hours, from 6pm to 8pm, and everyone is welcome to join us!

There is no set format for discussion, per se. Usually, the facilitating scholar selects and shares 1-3 articles and/or short clips that convey multiple perspectives on the topic and some guiding questions. Other times, however, a scholar may choose to screen a film and facilitate a shorter discussion after. Or, the scholar may choose to organize a trip to an art exhibit. These are simply some examples based on what has been done in the past, scholars can make discussion whatever they want it to be.

Although the format of discussions are not prescribed, they are incredibly important to our community and program. Discussions provide a space and time engage in fun, intellectual conversation with our peers. Through discussions, we learn about each other’s passions and interests, we challenge each other to broaden our perspectives, and we build community.

Additionally, discussions contribute to the liberal arts education we enjoy at Lafayette as they cover a wide variety of topics and challenge us to think outside of our academic disciplines.

You can find a record of recent discussions, by semester, here.