Samar Ali encourages Harpeth Hall students to strengthen the skill of listening

Samar Ali passes Harpeth Hall almost every day with her daughter. A few weeks ago, as the two drove past campus together, there was a special note in the air. “I’m going to be speaking there today,” Ms. Ali told her girl.

“What are you going to talk about?” her 4-year-old daughter asked with her preschooler inquisitiveness.

“Primarily about listening,” Ms. Ali replied.

Ms. Ali has focused her career on learning, listening, and “bringing people together through common values for a shared future.” She grew up in Waverly, Tennessee, as a “small-town girl in a complex world.” She traveled the globe with her family and was active in Humphreys County, where she lived. If there was a community activity that needed a volunteer, she was there. She was in student government and competed in athletics. Her focus was always on finding a path or purpose in life that was focused on fairness for all people.

“Growing up, I never would have guessed that my hyper-local activities would connect with global aspirations, but they have,” she said. “This intersection is where I work daily. It brings me joy.”

Ms. Ali is a lawyer, conflict mediation practitioner, social entrepreneur, and the founding president and CEO of Millions of Conversations, an organization dedicated to bridging divides and fostering dialogue among Americans. She is also a research professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University and co-chair of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy.

Her specialties lie at the intersection of national security, economic development, and human rights. She has worked on complicated conflicts as a White House Fellow and as an assistant commissioner of international affairs in the governor’s office for the state of Tennessee.

It can be easy, she said, to be a young person today and look around and worry. Pew Research shows that unfavorable opinions of the opposing political party have doubled on both sides since 1994, and the degrees of unfavorableness are at record highs today.

Ms. Ali’s work focuses on finding the way through polarization to a shared future. Her research has led her to develop a matrix that displays how, collectively, people can work from a cycle of hate to a path to peace. “We don’t want to lose the belief in the power of what happens when we come together,” she said.

“America is not unique in the problems that is has. Our problems are not exceptional,” she said, “but maybe our solutions can be. Maybe in solving these complex problems, we are finding right here at home, we can take those best practices and help scale them around the world.”

The way forward, she said, is to ask, “How did we get here? How do we describe where we are? How do we move forward?” That is a conversation, she said, and it requires listening.

“The listening muscle has atrophied,” she said. “And that’s very serious for human society.”

Ms. Ali’s goal is to help others strengthen the skill once again. When people truly listen to each other, she said, they often find they have more in common than they have differences. Harpeth Hall has displayed a commitment to shared values, she said, as she looked around the theatre at the banners displaying words including respect, integrity, honor, and kindness.

As she spoke to students, Ms. Ali defined listening: “the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages.” Then, she offered a few tips for how to listen to others actively.

• Know why you are listening — and truly listen. Catch yourself if you are only thinking about what you are going to say and do next.
• Hear what is being said, and reflect not only on your reaction but on the other person’s intention. Meet the words with curiosity even if you don’t fully understand what they are saying or why they are saying it. That is an opportunity to ask a follow-up question.
• Engage in a way that is productive and how you show up for the conversation.
• Don’t have sensitive conversations over text message.
• Your principles and values don’t have to be abandoned because you are listening to a person you don’t fully agree with, but you can still speak to that person and treat them as an equal human being.

Inspired by Ms. Ali’s words and in reflection of the school’s commitment to responsible citizenship and civil dialogue, students and faculty reflected on the tenants of listening in advisory and were invited to sign their own “Pledge to Listen,” which said:

As a student at Harpeth Hall, I pledge to listen to others who hold different opinions, views, or beliefs. I will try to understand their reasons and their perspectives and will respectfully express my own in return.

“Listening,” Ms. Ali said, “requires us to slow down.”

And, she said, it is one of the gifts students can give to others.

“My wish for you is that you will all use your time here to establish a foundation where you will decide what your gift is in this world,” she said, “and, as you recognize your gift along with the gifts of your fellow classmates and community members, I hope you embrace the pathway to nurturing your talents.”