On September 23rd, acclaimed author and journalist Colin Woodard stepped on stage at Innovation Hall on the UNE Portland campus to a room full of various faces. Among the crowd were students from UNE, both undergraduate and graduate, a group of students from Deering High School, and local Portland residents.
Woodard gave an engaging presentation on cultural divisions within the United States, the modern threat to our republic, and the need for a new “American story” to fight against undemocratic forces.
At the center of Woodard’s talk was a vision of a divided America. Instead of being one nation, Woodard says that the United States is actually 11 separate nations united under one state. He has found that most people across cultural and political divisions believe in a civic democracy. Woodard’s research focuses on finding a uniting message for the majority to rally behind to fight back against the forces threatening our union.
“I really liked him,” said Quinn Thayer, a political science major at UNE. “It was cool having someone with a research background in the humanities give a talk.”
The format of an hour-long talk followed by around 20 minutes of questions from the crowd proved to keep the students in the audience engaged with the speaker’s material.
“I thought it was really interesting,” said Katherine “Kay” DeFroscia, an undergraduate chemistry major at UNE. “I walked out feeling more informed than I did walking in.”
All of the students who were interviewed said that they would like to attend more of these events. “I should be paying more attention to posters around school,” laughed DeFroscia.
The inclusion of the local community outside of the University also proved to be a highlight of the experience. “It allowed me to see what everyday people are thinking about,” says Thayer, who also voiced an interest in holding more of this style of event on UNE’s Biddeford campus. “The Biddeford campus feels like an island,” she said.
Having these events open to local community members will get the university more involved with the area and expose students to new and different perspectives, explained Thayer.
The Bolt also reached out to a handful of faculty and staff who were present at the event. At the point of publication, they have yet to respond to our requests for comment.
The next Center for Global Humanities lecture is on October 23 at the Harold Alfond Forum on the Biddeford campus.
