The Students for Understanding initiative within the BYU Sorensen Center for Moral and Ethical Leadership encourages students to debate openly on divisive issues in today’s society while prioritizing peacemaking and Christlike discourse.
Megan Stevenson, a junior in the Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation program and a student lead at the Sorensen Center, co-created the Students for Understanding discussions with political science junior Jayne Connolly. Discussions occur every Wednesday at 5 p.m. in the lobby area of the McDonald Building, and food is provided.
“In my experience, I felt like there wasn't a lot of space on campus for people to talk about the issues of the day in a kind way,” Stevenson said. “We need to have places to talk about these issues that we hold near and dear to our heart.”
Stevenson said the initiative fosters organizes dialogue on a certain issue each week, ensuring students’ voices and opinions are heard and welcoming empathy towards those with different worldviews.
In March 2024, Stevenson attended a BYU Campus Conversations event which screened a documentary titled “The Basement Talks.” The documentary featured pro-life and pro-choice women in Boston, Massachusetts, who came together in peace and compassion after a shooting at an abortion clinic.
“It was so beautiful to see how they never let go of their really strong opinions about abortion or about pro-choice,” she said, “but they started to see the other side as human and as good people.”
This documentary and the Campus Conversations event inspired Stevenson to establish Students for Understanding with a similar goal of encouraging compassion and respect for opinions outside of one’s own.
These meetings began in October 2024, just one month before the 2024 United States presidential election which Stevenson recalled as being a contentious time between those with different political ideologies.
Stevenson also attributed the creation of Students for Understanding to the teachings of BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which taught her the importance of civic engagement and valuing the experiences and perspectives of others.
“You hear a lot of talk about peacemaking, but you don't see a lot of actively doing practical peacemaking,” Connolly said. “We wanted to establish something where every week you have to come do the hard work of peacemaking.”
Tricia Hobbs, inspired initiative coordinator for the Sorensen Center, helps support the student leadership initiatives at the Sorensen Center, including Students for Understanding.
She said the “DNA” of the Sorensen Center is the Christ-Centered Leader Model, which offers strategies on how student leaders can exemplify Christ by exercising principles of love, agency and accountability to nurture one’s relationships and responsibilities towards God, His children, oneself and one’s stewardships.
“A lot of times, we think of leadership as someone being over a group of people,” Hobbs said, “but leadership is really in our every day-to-day life. We lead, especially, as we try to exemplify our life or center our life on Jesus Christ.”
The model consists of three circles — the outer circle of the four relationships and responsibilities, the middle circle of the three principles and the innermost circle that highlights a leader’s focus on Jesus Christ.
“He was the perfect example of a leader in every aspect of His life,” Hobbs said. “We use Him as an example of how He dealt with the challenges within those four relationships and how He invited accountability, expressed love and honored the agency of those around Him.”
Hobbs said the principles within the Christ-Centered Leader Model are foundational within Students for Understanding discussions to help students cultivate a better understanding of God’s children and learn how to have conversations with those that may have opposing opinions.
“We do that by listening, without arguing, without belittling or critiquing,” Hobbs said. “We also honor their agency as they express these views, and then they allow us to do the same as well.”
Everyone involved in these discussions must agree to certain terms, Stevenson said, so these discussions remain productive rather than heated, such as refraining from interrupting and attacking others’ opinions.
“We've been invited by our prophet to be peacemakers,” Stevenson said. “I think this is an opportunity — a real-life opportunity — to practice peacemaking skills as you engage in conversations that are difficult and try to see the common ground that we all have.”
Stevenson said Students for Understanding has debated national and worldwide issues such as climate change, vaccinations, immigration, the role of the government, abortion, women’s rights, the war in Ukraine, the 2024 presidential election and other controversial topics.
“I think we had four or five international students in my group alone,” Connolly said about their past discussion on immigration, “and just hearing from students about their experience, it really widens one's perspective, whether they’re from the U.S. or not.”
The discussions may also cover relevant topics regarding the BYU experience as well as non-political topics such as fashion and art, Stevenson said. Connolly mentioned a “hot take” night that allowed participants to practice stating their opinions in respectful ways that didn’t diminish their strong positions.
Students can learn more about Students for Understanding and other Sorensen Center events by signing up for the center’s email list. Students can also propose their own leadership initiatives through the Sorensen Center website.