76 | MAY 28 • 2020
Online
Fellowship
Detroit Center for Civil Discourse
successfully moves online.
H
ow do you move a class
online when the entire
premise revolves around
sitting at the same table in the
same place? Well, if you’
re one of
the leaders of the Detroit Center
for Civil Discourse fellowship,
you may just do it with ease.
That’
s right, ease.
After nearly eight months of
in-person meetings, the fellow-
ship was forced to move online.
The fellowship, comprised of
Wayne State students and based
at WSU, is one of many ways
that DCCD executes its mission,
which encourages deep civic
relationships between diverse
people through respectful dia-
logue.
It was initially designed for 20
fellows from a variety of religious
and ethnic backgrounds to sit
around the same conference
room table, face-to-face, with an
opportunity to engage with one
another.
“The shift to online meetings
came at a time after the cohort
already built a foundation of
trust and camaraderie,
” said
Ariana Mentzel, managing direc-
tor of DCCD.
Each session would feature
a topic, usually with a speaker
and guided discussion. Over
the year, the cohort had difficult
conversations about the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, participated
in anti-bias training with Anti-
Defamation League staff and
learned about Judaism and Islam
in cultural and religious ways.
During the first Zoom meet-
ing, the conversation focused on
the novel coronavirus; no one
was disappointed.
“It is obviously less than ideal
for us meet online rather than
in-person, but we’
ve turned the
difficult situation into an oppor-
tunity to support one another,
”
said Nisim Nesimov, a WSU
senior and DCCD fellow.
The move online also gave
Mentzel, WSU Professor Saeed
Khan and Rabbi David Polsky
an opportunity to change the
cohort’
s participation outside of
Zoom sessions. Over the course
of the year, there were numerous
“bonus opportunities,
” which
included speakers and events.
Rather than scrapping the idea
of these bonus opportunities,
new “online bonus opportu-
nities” were offered, including
TED Talks, podcasts, conver-
sations and interviews. These
hands-on activities gave each
fellow an opportunity to learn
about something new.
Following the last few meet-
ings of the year, the plan is for
the fellows to continue working
on group projects. The hope is
that they’
ll be able to reunite
again and have a year-end social
gathering. @
Jeremy Rosenberg is a senior at Wayne
State and was a 2020 DCCD fellow.
Jeremy Rosenberg } jewish@edu writer
Wayne State University
student fellows meet in
the Before Times to hold
civil discourse.
THE DETROIT CENTER FOR CIVIL DISCOURSE
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