How Intellectual Vitality Became Vital to Harvard
Three years ago, almost no Harvard students had heard of “intellectual vitality.” Now, they can’t escape it.
Three years ago, almost no Harvard students had heard of “intellectual vitality.”
Now, they can’t escape it.
Even Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana, the loudest champion of intellectual vitality in Harvard’s top administration, acknowledged in a Thursday email to undergraduates that they might have some questions about this new, mysterious, and ubiquitous phrase.
“Whether you attended Convocation or read about it afterward, you’ve likely encountered references to ‘intellectual vitality,’” Khurana wrote. “We’re writing to say a bit more about what intellectual vitality has meant and why it matters — and to invite you to take the lead in determining what it will be.”
As Harvard found itself at the center of a media maelstrom and national scrutiny for its handling of campus protests and antisemitism following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, administrators have increasingly leaned on their new intellectual vitality initiative — which aims to promote free expression — to convince prospective students and alumni that Harvard remains committed to its academic mission.
This summer, the College launched “phase three” of the initiative — which has included new programming at freshman orientation events, funding opportunities, a growing group of fellows and staff, and repeated references to the spirit of intellectual vitality in messages from administrators.
But some Harvard affiliates expressed skepticism of the intent behind the intellectual vitality push, saying that the initiative appears to be an attempt to mollify outside forces and political criticism.
Khurana wrote in a Sunday statement that “the work of engaging in challenging conversations and advancing a better understanding of the world belongs to all of us.”
“Intellectual Vitality will only work if we do,” Khurana wrote.
‘A Very Noble Idea’
Many members of the Class of 2028 first became acquainted with intellectual vitality at Visitas, Harvard’s annual admitted students weekend, where administrators promoted the initiatives to some students who were not even officially enrolled in the College.
During a question and answer session as part of the weekend’s programming, Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 highlighted the College’s efforts to foster a “rewarding and stimulating learning environment.”
“We have a number of initiatives intended to promote discourse — including the intellectual vitality initiative in the College, which I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about,” Garber said at the April event.
The intellectual vitality push picked up steam after Harvard weathered months of criticism over the University’s handling of campus antisemitism and Islamophobia following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
As the war in the Middle East revealed deep divisions among the students and faculty at Harvard, University leadership sought to demonstrate its commitment to bridging those divides and fostering open debate.
Camila L. Nardozzi, the director of Intellectual Vitality Initiatives, acknowledged that the controversies that roiled Harvard’s campus surrounding the war in Gaza made intellectual vitality more imperative.
“Students have been saying that they want more authentic conversation for quite some time,” Nardozzi wrote in an emailed statement. “The events of last year only made that need more urgent.”
As Harvard resolved its leadership crisis over the summer and sought to turn a new leaf with the start of the academic year, the College launched new intellectual vitality programming for students — with a focus on the incoming freshman class.
As a part of their orientation, freshmen were required to complete a newly-implemented “Perspectives” program comprising six 30-minute parts to help them “develop the ability to engage in constructive and respectful dialogue, even when it might be uncomfortable,” per the College’s website.
Dafne Unsal Nunchi ’28 said the module was the first time she heard of the term “intellectual vitality.”
“I think it’s a very noble idea — an idea that is hard to apply in practice,” Unsal Nunchi said.
Orientation programming also included a slate of events centered around intellectual vitality, such as “Community Conversations,” developed by the Harvard Foundation and a keynote talk by Government professor Michael J. Sandel about ethics and artificial intelligence.
Victoria R. Wilson ’25 and Ariel F. Kohn ’25-’26, who serve as undergraduate Intellectual Vitality Fellows, provided trainings for Peer Advisory Fellows, student club leaders, and pre-orientation programs at the start of the semester, where they modeled having difficult conversations and practiced gauging the “temperature” of hot-button issues.
Kohn said that with each training, feedback to the initiative — including freshmen who have “really embraced intellectual vitality” and a reflection form after the training sessions — has demonstrated that “people feel like this is something that is so necessary.”
“The thing about intellectual vitality is it should be implicit and something that everyone does because it should be synonymous with Harvard,” she said.
“We don’t want it to be a top down thing that we bang people over the head with,” Kohn added. “We want it to be a sort of base assumption that everyone operates on all the time.”
More Hands on Deck
After one year of assessing the state of campus discourse with groups of students, faculty, and alumni, the initiative rolled out its programming to students for the first time.
Wilson said that the past year of the initiative was dedicated to “trying to gauge what people on campus felt” and “hear from student perspectives.”
“This year, we kind of understand how students are feeling — we understand student sentiment — and we’re now actually launching more action items,” she said.
In the fall, the College announced new programs that seek undergraduate input, like the newly formed Intellectual Vitality Student Advisory Committee and funding for events related to the initiative.
As the Intellectual Vitality initiative expands, there have been a growing number of hands on deck — including a recently established administrative position and an inaugural cohort of graduate fellows.
In June, the College appointed Matthew Sohm — who also serves as a lecturer in the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature — as the Intellectual Vitality Initiative’s assistant director of pedagogy.
Sohm’s role focuses on integrating intellectual vitality into classrooms and academics — including working with preceptors for Expos 20, a required writing class for freshmen, to strengthen the writing curriculum around counterarguments and collaborating with staff in General Education courses to “structure conversations of challenging topics.”
“We’d like Harvard classrooms to be places where students are able to see the best in each other and take risks, knowing that their ideas might be scrutinized, but that they won’t be judged as people,” Sohm wrote in an email.
In addition to working with educators in General Education and Expository Writing, the Intellectual Vitality Initiative launched a dinner and dialogue series called Books Open, Gates Unbarred.
The dinners take place in the Faculty Club with students and professors. A dinner scheduled for Oct. 21 with Government professors Ryan D. Enos and Steven R. Levitsky is titled “Why is Harvard the Focus of So Much Political Attention?” On Nov. 14, Government professor Melani Cammett and Psychology professor Mina Cikara will host a dinner focusing on “Pursuing Reconciliation After Ethnic Conflict.”
The expanding staff centered around intellectual vitality also includes 26 Fellows in Values Engagement — a program created last year by the Dean of Students Office and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics — from each of the freshmen Yards and upperclassmen Houses.
Fellows are responsible for facilitating discussions with students, creating at least one event that encourages affiliates to engage with core values, and participating in a Safra Center workshop on “best practices for facilitating values-based conversations,” according to the fellowship website.
Yoseph D. Boku ’21, a fellow in Kirkland House, wrote in an emailed statement that he took on the role believing that civil disagreement is a key part of a liberal arts education.
“Last semester showed us that many students, including those doxxed for their advocacy for Palestine, don’t feel free to express their views,” Boku wrote in an emailed statement.
“I approach this role with humility, knowing that building a culture of intellectual vitality is a herculean task, and that students are the ones best equipped to lead the way,” Boku wrote.
Lost in Translation
In his email to undergraduates on Thursday, Khurana encouraged students to join the College’s intellectual vitality efforts and touted the initiative as an effort to promote respectful disagreement.
“Intellectual vitality began with a handful of students who felt that they weren’t having the kinds of conversations they’d come to Harvard for: in class, they found themselves saying what they thought others wanted to hear, for fear of being criticized or judged if they spoke their own minds; even among their friends, they kept certain views and beliefs to themselves,” Khurana wrote.
“The result was a pervasive sense of inauthenticity and alienation,” he added.
But the Intellectual Vitality Initiative’s shift to public-facing messaging and programming has prompted some students and fellows to question whether the initiative is operating with students in mind or if the initiative is just another attempt to improve the College’s PR image.
Hugo C. Chiasson ’28 said that while the intellectual vitality initiative seemed a “mixture” of earnestly addressing campus division and “trying to respond to public criticism of Harvard’s campus and Harvard culture,” he also views it as a response to broader political polarization.
But other students pointed to the discrepancies between the idea behind intellectual vitality — which promotes “free and open inquiry” and encourages conversations beyond differences — to recent messages from University administrators limiting forms of protest and enforcing disciplinary consequences in accordance with protest guidelines.
In May, the College suspended five students and placed more than 20 other students on probation for their participation in the Yard encampment. Though the College has walked back many of those disciplinary sanctions and recently reinstated the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee after suspending the organization in the spring, many student activists have lambasted the College’s actions as equivalent to a “Palestine exception to free speech.”
Jessica Wang ’26 said the initiative — especially in light of the University’s handling of campus protests — seems to show that administration prioritizes making the governing boards satisfied rather than “making sure that students have a not only good quality of life, but are able to express their thoughts and be a part of organizing that actually has an impactful change.”
Wang added that the initiative felt like “too little too late” and said she didn’t “really have much of an impression of it.”
“It’s just another buzzword that I feel admin throws around to toot and play up Harvard’s name and how much they care about students, without actually putting the work and effort it takes to support students,” she said.
Catherine G. Huang, Elm Yard’s fellow in value engagement, said the language being used by administrators might be a reason for student distrust of the initiative.
“I think there’s definitely something being lost in the messaging and translation,” Huang said.
She added that if the directors of the initiative want students to view the program as anything beyond a “political farce” or a response to donor and alumni pressure, then administrators must model intellectual vitality in their handling of student conflict and activism.
Khurana wrote in his Sunday statement that administrators “welcome disagreement and an ongoing productive conversation to advance our opportunities to connect meaningfully as a community.”
“Ultimately, it is students in their classes, residential spaces, and student organizations who either embrace or abandon intellectual vitality in their interactions with each other,” Khurana added. “We hope they choose to take advantage of the diversity of perspectives and points of view at our community.”
Still, both students and fellows alike acknowledged that intellectual vitality is a lofty but worthwhile goal.
Huang said that despite any skepticism students might have, “it doesn’t mean that intellectual vitality isn’t important and shouldn’t be important to students, because, again, it applies in many different ways.”
Chiasson said he believes it “remains to be seen” whether intellectual vitality will thrive on campus after the wave of programming launched this semester.
“I think that there’s definitely space for it, especially if you go and look for it,” he added.
—Staff writer Michelle N. Amponsah can be reached at michelle.amponsah@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @mnamponsah.
—Staff writer Joyce E. Kim can be reached at joyce.kim@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @joycekim324.