Jennifer Herdt Diálogos Presentation

Jennifer Herdt, Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale University’s Divinity School, joined the Octet Collaborative on February 15th for the third intellectual hospitality event of the 2023-24 academic year. The title of her talk was “Are We in this Together? Cultivating the Virtues in a Pluralistic University.”

In an era of deep division and conflict, how should MIT think about the moral formation of its students? Does character matter, and should the university - particularly one focused on science and engineering such as MIT - play a role in building it? And how does one do so in a way that respects the pluralistic society that MIT happily supports? Listen here to her presentation. An essay by Prof. Herdt, summarizing many of the themes of her talk, may be downloaded here.