Award-Winning Commentator David Brooks Visits HIU, Gives Public Lecture

Award-winning New York Times columnist, best-selling author, and PBS News Hour panelist David Brooks toured the HIU campus and spoke with peacebuilding students on Tuesday, April 29, before a public lecture sponsored by HIU and the Spiritual Life Center as part of the Forum for Life and Meaning. 

He came away from his visit with some strong impressions about the unique nature of the work done at HIU.

"I've never been at an institution quite like this," he said at the beginning of his lecture. "It's an institution that preaches diversity, like every institution does, but practices it in a way I've never seen before."

David Brooks' visit and lecture were the culmination of a yearlong planning process. In early 2024, when the Forum for Life and Meaning was still known as the Robertson Spirituality Series, founder James K. "Jim" Robertson, a former HIU board chair, expressed his hope that the forum could bring David Brooks to Hartford.

The Forum for Life and Meaning aims to nourish those who are religiously unaffiliated, and Jim Robertson thought David Brooks would be the ultimate speaker on the topic since he has written so movingly about his own search for meaning.

On Tuesday, that long planning process came to fruition when Brooks traveled to Hartford from his home in Washington, D.C., and toured the HIU campus with President Joel N. Lohr. He learned a bit about our history and our efforts to establish a center built around the philosophy of Howard Thurman, someone about whom David Brooks has written powerful essays, including this one.

Brooks also had the chance to sit down with four students in the MA in International Peacebuilding (MAP) program as well as MAP Director Phoebe Milliken. What impressed him was the emphasis on skill-building and practical applications for addressing conflict. 

"I got to meet some of the students from Ethiopia, and the U.S., and Sierra Leone," he said during his lecture. He remarked upon "the lives they're going to lead, based on not only the spiritual training, but the spiritual and practical training. Those two things, being spiritually elevated and practically astute, is just a magic combination. So I'm honored to have been here."

The lecture touched upon a number of topics included in Brooks' latest book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.

He spoke about the need for deep listening; how some people are "Diminishers" and others are "Illuminators"; how to have hard conversations, and how to ask good questions. He spoke about the importance of teaching people the skills necessary for reconciliation and peacebuilding.

"I saw a glimmer of it today on campus," he said. "We need to teach people basic social skills so they can do reconciliation and peacebuilding. We have not taught several generations of Americans how to be considerate to each other around the complex circumstances of life."

Following the lecture, President Lohr asked some questions of his own as well as questions from the audience. In that conversation, Brooks spoke about his own journey, some of which he explored in a New York Times magazine piece called The Shock of Faith. Brooks was raised in a Jewish household but has, more recently, found an affinity with Christianity as well. He said he considers himself "a person of faith."

"I feel more Jewish than I ever have in my life, but I can't unread Matthew," he said. "Everybody on all sides has been wonderfully gracious to me. ... You follow the beauty you see."

The evening ended with a standing ovation for David Brooks.

Please learn more about The Forum for Life and Meaning at this link on our website.