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Residential Colleges

Required Summer Assignment

Summer Assignment Overview

Every summer Vanderbilt’s incoming first-year students complete a common assignment. This year the programming on The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons will focus on “Stories that Connect Us”.

During your time at Vanderbilt, you will share, listen to, and become a part of many different and powerful stories. In doing so, you will be exposed to a range of perspectives that may inspire your curiosity, conflict with one another and perhaps even challenge your own assumptions. Engaging with these diverse viewpoints helps you to become a discerning scholar and leader—one who is capable of not simply absorbing the ideas of others, but of thoughtfully integrating them into your evolving understanding of the world and of yourself.  Doing this requires listening to others’ stories with an openness to the idea that your own viewpoints can change.

Your first assignment invites you to engage in an interactive storytelling exercise to practice two essential skills for learning and thriving here at Vanderbilt: asking questions and listening.  Approaching others with curiosity, asking questions to elicit understanding and listening with full attention will help you to connect with others through their stories while also challenging your own thinking. To practice these skills, we ask you to interview someone in your community who you find interesting or who you think may have experiences or perspectives different from yours. This experience offers opportunities and tools for engaging constructively across difference, a key tenant of Dialogue Vanderbilt.

In the official announcement of the summer assignment, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs C. Cybele Raver said, “At Vanderbilt, we believe that meaningful dialogue is at the heart of a strong, connected community. This new summer assignment challenges our incoming students to listen deeply, ask thoughtful questions and engage with the diverse perspectives that shape our world. By cultivating the skills of narrative inquiry, our students will not only build relationships but also develop the habits of curiosity and reflection that define a lifelong commitment to learning.”

COMPLETING THE SUMMER ASSIGNMENT

Completing this assignment involves the following:

  • Learn more about conducting productive interviews by reading scholarship on the art and science of interviewing, drawing from experts in journalism, ethnography, communication studies, and education. A specific set of readings will be provided along with recordings from university leaders on key considerations when preparing.
  • Identify someone in your community who you find interesting or who you think may have experiences or perspectives different from yours to interview.
  • Prepare interview questions using a provided template.
  • Conduct and record an interview of approximately 30-60 minutes.
  • Prepare an interview project submission which includes an overview of the interviewee and rationale for their selection, your revised interview question template, a recording (or except of the recording) if your interviewee agrees, and a 1-2 page reflection about what you learned about this person from the interview, along with at least one question you wish you had asked or want to ask now.

All incoming first-year students will receive communication from Dean of Residential Colleges and Residential Education Melissa Gresalfi in June with detailed instructions for the assignment. Completed interview projects must be submitted between August 1 and August 11. Projects will be shared with VUceptors for use in discussion during orientation and throughout the Vanderbilt Visions program.

To request accommodations or with questions, email summer.assignment@vanderbilt.edu.