Practicing Civil Discourse at OU
Debate Another Oakland Student
Have a one-on-one text chat with another Oakland student who thinks differently than you.
The chat is hosted on Sway. Register below and answer a short private survey on the topics. Sway uses your answers to match you with a classmate who sees things differently. When needed, Sway will help you spot assumptions and push you both to reason and communicate more clearly.
Why do it?
- Talk about things your high school wouldn't touch: abortion, disruptive protests, where free speech ends and so on. These are important questions that many students have never discussed openly.
- Get to know another Oakland student: students often end up making friends through the chat.
- Find out why another student disagrees with your convictions: argue for your ideas and hear someone else's arguments against them—students often change their minds.
- Test what people back home take for granted. You might not have had to explain your views to someone who grew up somewhere else. This is a low-stakes way to see which parts hold up.
Your classmates are chatting about these topics:
- Free speech and its limits
- Protest and disruption
- Speaking up vs. keeping quiet in class
- Wealth redistribution
- Trying to convert your classmates
- Abortion rights
How it works
A Sway chat takes around 30 minutes, but you chat on your own time, and you can do it in one sitting or across a few days. Just make sure you finish by September 25.
At the end you'll answer a quick quiz on your partner's arguments and a short survey.
When you finish
Progress your chat to 100%, answer the quiz and survey, and you'll get a sweet new OU t-shirt and be entered to win a $500 scholarship.
Get to know a classmate. Get to know yourself. Join the conversation!
Get matched with another Golden Grizzly.
Chat when convenient.
Additional resources
- Getting started plus chat progress tips
- See a full chat walkthrough
- How Sway stores and protects your data
Political Science
Political Science
