Dartmouth Professors Tarek El-Ariss and Susanna Heschel Speak at Friday Assembly

By ERIN HAN, JINMIN LEE, and LILY RAMPE

On Friday, Sept. 15, Dartmouth professors Tarek El-Ariss and Susannah Heschel spoke in a moderated panel discussion about their recent intellectual and curricular collaboration at the university. El-Ariss and Heschel are the current chairs of Dartmouth’s Middle Eastern Studies and Jewish Studies programs, respectively. For the past year, they have collaborated to create a course on promoting open dialogue about sensitive topics among students of all backgrounds. After the panel, the professors encouraged the audience to ask questions.

Seniors Sama Mouzannar and Grant Leopold moderated the on-stage discussion with the professors. During the assembly, the two seniors first proposed their prepared questions and then opened up to the audience for additional questions. The professors discussed their long-term collaboration at the university, the importance of which had been heightened by the current Israeli-Palestinian War. They emphasized the importance of grounding contemporary discussions in a historical context, sharing how they themselves were often surprised by the relevance of the historical documents that they studied. Subsequent questions from the audience ranged from those asking about Dartmouth’s response to student protests to ones concerning the effects of the war on the professors’ curricula and discussions in the classroom.

For Mouzannar and Leopold, little preparation was done for the assembly. “Mr. Kilinc called me the night before the assembly,” recalled Mouzannar. “We had dinner with the two professors that night, and the dinner went really well, so Mr. Kilinc felt that I had a nice relationship given my Lebanese background. So, he called me and asked if I was willing to moderate the assembly the next day. Of course, I agreed because I felt it’d be very interesting. So, for preparation, he told me to just bring my mind, and I brought my mind.”

Leopold added, “Mr. Kilinc has been my JV soccer coach for three years, and I love him. Now, I am in his Contemporary Middle East class, so we are close through soccer and academically through that class.” 

Because of the collaboration and conversation form of the assembly, Leopold felt comfortable on stage. “I mean, it’s pretty easy when you have such kind, intelligent people that you’re talking to.”

Mouzannar felt that her goal for the assembly was accomplished. “Honestly, our goal was just to make everyone a little bit more knowledgeable and educated about the conflict. My question was about social media and how it portrayed the Middle East in general.”

Mouzannar continued, “I feel like we see many things on social media but we don’t know if it is true, false, or exaggerated. I wanted the professors to give their educated expert opinion on how they feel social media is our knowledge and understanding of history, and I think that went really well.”

Some students in the audience shared similar reactions, appreciating the diversity of expertise that the professors brought to the discussion. “The assembly felt productive because it reminded students to ground modern-day conflict in history and context,” reflected upper Andrew Gould. “I liked how the professors used a wide variety of disciplines—including literature and philosophy—to find a greater understanding of each party’s relation to another. This practice seems useful for all fields of study, not just in analyzing conflicts.” 

Upper Salma Dinari also thought the professors approached this topic well. “I think that both the professors sounded like they knew what they were talking about. It was interesting to see the two opposing points of view come together and speak as one. I also think they did a good job of giving adequate answers that weren’t too controversial. 

Upper Sophie Jaffer agreed, “I really liked how they talked about how they had started the class before the big situation with Israel and Palestine blew up because it gave us a really good perspective into seeing how they thought about it and how their class changed before and after to support the students.”

Adding on to Dinari and Jaffer’s thoughts, an anonymous student offered, “In my opinion, the assembly was about a topic that is very important to hear about, especially as young learners. It is a heavy topic to discuss, and it left me feeling more educated about the conflict. A lot of what was discussed is already implemented at Exeter, being respectful while speaking about certain topics and educating based on facts. I was left wondering if the professors ever disagreed on a topic and how they resolved that disagreement to teach their class. I think Exeter could do more of these assemblies as it was important; however, it wasn’t particularly related to my interests.”

However, some students had mixed feelings about the panel’s emphasis on open discussion rather than current news. “To some students, it might seem like beating around the bush and not addressing what’s on everyone’s mind directly, which the questions reflected. Some students may have wanted a direct mention of specific events,” commented Leopold. 

An anonymous upperclassman in the audience agreed, “While I do think it is good that the Academy is approaching this topic, it feels that [this assembly] came less from a stance of educating the student body on the ongoing war and [more to] subdue understandable emotions of students.” They continued, “My and many other students’ frustration is valid and warranted. The school implores us to seek uncomfortable truths, which inherently involve disagreement and discomfort. Emphasizing that we must all get along seems to counter that.”

“I think it was necessary that students were involved because it was a controversial issue with many strong opinions involved,” stated another anonymous student. “Nonetheless, I didn’t find it very productive. Many of the students seemed to want specific answers from the panelists, but the panelists only gave moderate answers. If the assembly had been more based on facts and the students had been more informed, it would have been much better. This format of having panelists could be used in the future for other topics, but I would not want a repeat of this assembly.”

In addition, compared to the questions posed by the student moderators, some felt that the audience’s questions were more provocative. “There was a stark contrast between the audience questions and the questions given by the students on stage,” described a different anonymous student. “The audience questions had very clear bias, and I don’t think they were built on the idea of inquiry but more so on the idea of argument, and they were very emotionally fueled. They weren’t really asking for an answer but were trying to get a point across.”

“A lot of the questions almost answered themselves even before the professors’ responses because of their loaded phrasing,” another anonymous upperclassman reflected. 

“I think some of the loaded questions were somewhat expected, especially after a talk about the emphasis of dialogue,” reflected Leopold.

Overall, using a panel format and encouraging the audience to ask questions received mixed student reviews. While some liked the reminder of engaging in open discussions, others would have preferred a more fact-driven assembly. Most importantly, collaboration is important when discussing any issue. “I think it should be commonplace at every school to be open to dialogue instead of just presenting facts and arguing about them,” he concluded. “I think the emphasis on collaboration was very much key here for the assembly.”