On Oct. 23, WashU’s Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging came together for their first-ever intergenerational conversation with the goal of fostering meaningful conversation between age groups in the midst of a tense election season, growing political polarization, and widespread social-media misinformation. Students sat in groups of three and four in round tables across the classroom, directly across elderly residents of St. Louis and WashU teaching faculty.

“Younger generations are pitted against older generations in a zero-sum game, which ends up being a false dichotomy, a false sense of tension,” said Dr. Brian Carpenter, Co-Director at the Center for Aging. This tension, Carpenter explained, fuels the creation of an “other,” where it is easier for groups to cast blame on one another than to engage in productive conversations.

“Multi-generational collaboration is the best answer. It encourages the sharing of a diverse set of perspectives and enhances each of our broader senses of culture and what our culture is about,” Carpenter said.

The Center for Aging works with several nonprofits, including STL Village, to recruit their elderly residents. STL Village is a membership organization of older adults who are all looking to age together through volunteerism and with easy access to health and safety resources. 

Alongside the elderly residents, students at the event primarily came from a first-year Beyond Boundaries seminar and an upper-level Political Science elective. 

“This is our first campus-wide event, and we would like to do them more frequently,” said Natalie Galucia, Manager at the Harvey Center. “It seems to be [that] once we get people in the room and give them something to talk about, the conservation seems to go on and on.”

Before beginning the event, the Center for Aging reiterated the importance of dialogue and encouraged students and elderly residents to ask questions to one another, whether it be about the role of social media in their lives, the nature of their political engagement, or the importance of having effective conversations within family settings. 

“I would encourage students not to pass off the topic of aging as something in the far future,” Galucia said. “We are all growing older and have older people in our family and communities, and it’s something important for all of us to focus on.”

Before opening the floor to students, Dr. Amy Gais — Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Thought and Political Science — reminded students that being a good listener is the key to intellectualism.

“I encourage all my students to be curious about what people think,” Gais said. “To be curious about people is being able to put down what you think and [letting] yourself pick up what someone else thinks.”

As the room broke out into chatter, students and residents jumped into back-and-forth conversation and shared their commonalities and differences regarding living in the digital age.

Some groups discussed the nature of politics in family conversations, with the overarching consensus that for the sake of family relations, it’s better when the topic is avoided. 

“When I get together with my daughters and family, we make a deal of no politics whatsoever,” Gayle Gary, a senior resident from St. Louis, said. “We just can’t do it because of the interference. It would be nice if we could sit down and discuss something on an even heel.” 

Other groups discussed the role that political affiliations play when attending a school like WashU. Senior residents were curious about the political climate of WashU, and they admitted to feeling silenced when they were in the students’ shoes. 

“WashU is actually the most conservative, right-leaning school I have ever been in,” said Atiya Chiphe, junior at WashU, who reflected on her experience as a student growing up in an extremely liberal high school in Chicago. Other students found WashU to be a significant change from their conservative upbringings.

Throughout the event, ideals of respect and open dialogue were continuously reemphasized through the implementation of ground rules.

“One thing I tell students and colleagues is that I will tolerate differences of opinions in my class, but I won’t tolerate racism and misogyny,” Gais said. 

At the end of the breakout conversations, groups shared memorable moments from their evening, and they reflected on the lessons they learned while conversing across age gaps. 

“We talked about how politics impacted us at a personal level,” junior Ilan Barnea said. “Everything feels disastrous and crazy, and it affects us all at a personal level.”

Although this was a small event, the Center for Aging hopes that the success of their first intergenerational conversation will be a stepping stone to open discourse and relieve lingering tension dividing the various age groups.