Understand others. Understand yourself.

Ask Big Questions Programs

Innovation Fund

Recognizing that many campuses are doing great work to develop a better culture of conversation, the purpose of the Ask Big Questions Pilot Innovation Fund is to identify and support such initiatives, and to learn from them.

Over 30 campuses applied for grants from the Innovation Fund in October. After a review process that included Ask Big Questions, The Einhorn Family Charitable Trust staff, and a member of Hillel's Board of Directors, nine campuses were selected to receive funding. All grantees will send representatives to a consultation to be held in late May. The aim of the consultation will be to better understand how partnerships between curricular and co-curricular units can lead to changes in campus culture.

Ask Big Questions awarded a total of $99,470 to nine campuses in the United States.

The individual grantees are listed below:

Drexel Journey Conversations

Drexel University

This initiative will convene students of diverse backgrounds for conversation about their journeys of identity formation. Grant funding supports a training retreat that uses the Journey Conversations model, regular small group discussion meetings, and development of an enhanced interfaith baccalaureate ceremony.

Planting Seeds

Juniata College

The grant supports this service-learning program on a small liberal arts campus in rural Pennsylvania, in which diverse students participate in direct anti-hunger work alongside farmers in the local community, and convene for meaningful reflection following each service event.

Moral Leadership Seminar

New York University

NYU will develop a for-credit course to deepen students' capacity for identifying, articulating, and organizing to address adaptive challenges in their communities and the world. The curriculum includes a significant focus on personal and collective narrative.

Hospitality and Welcoming the ‘Stranger’

Stanford University

The Hospitality initiative includes volunteer opportunities in community agencies, conversation sessions, major lectures, and a for-credit course. The initiative responds to President Obama's Interfaith Community Service Campus Challenge, and brings together an extensive group of faculty, student life staff, and Hillel to work in partnership.

Freedom Square Online

Towson University

Freedom Square Online extends the Freedom Square initiative of the Office for Civic Engagement, which engages the campus in discussion about important questions facing the community and society. Grant funding supports a Thoughtful Thursdays discussion series and creation of a Freedom Square Fellows program.

Makom

University of Michigan

This partnership between Hillel and The Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR) offers intraJewish dialogues for students to explore social identity and power, develop communication skills across differences and build community. Students will be trained to facilitate these dialogues for their peers.

Tea Talks

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

The Tea Talks initiative is a monthly dialogue forum for leaders of diverse campus communities to gather for reflective conversation about important and challenging questions. Funding supports expansion of the program, both in number of events and through digital media, and a retreat for training dialogue facilitators.

Moral Voices Rwanda Seminar

University of Pennsylvania

This intercultural service-learning initiative brings together student fellows to explore the dynamics of cultural and ethnic violence and strategies for their elimination. Fellows participate in a university seminar, organize conversations for hundreds of their peers, and participate in a 10-day journey to Rwanda to work with youth orphaned by the Rwandan civil war and to learn about the conflict and its aftermath.

Advancing Ut Prosim (That I May Serve)

Virginia Tech University

The initiative includes weekly open space conversations on challenging questions for leaders of diverse campus organizations, a broader initiative to engage the campus in conversation, immersive training experiences for student leaders, and a community-wide event to commemorate and respond to the fifth anniversary of the 2007 campus shootings.