Ask Big Questions

Written by Jenn Feldman, Student

This year, Western Hillel brought Ask Big Questions to our campus. Ask Big Questions is an organization that works with colleges and universities to engage students in reflective conversations about purpose, identity, and responsibility. These conversations build trust, strengthen community, and deepen understanding across lines of difference.

For the first time, Ask Big Questions representatives came to Western Hillel to train our student leaders on how to host these reflective conversations. These trained students then went out and hosted eight sessions over the course of the year engaging new friends. All were very successful in evoking important conversation surrounding themes like civil discourse, purpose and identity, and intercultural competence.

Sessions lasted about an hour and a half and were filled with good food and good conversation. All feedback was positive and students felt that they got closer to friends and opened up to new people as a result of the unique environment. Ask Big Questions aims to change the world through productive conversation and we could certainly see the beginning of this positive change over the past year in our community at Western.