COLLEGE Civic Salons
Banner photo by Anthony Chen - Ethnography
Civic Salons bring thoughtful dialogue on citizenship and contemporary challenges directly to Stanford's residential communities. Throughout winter quarter, instructors leading "Citizenship in the 21st Century"—the second course in Stanford's COLLEGE requirement—host small-group conversations in residence halls, exploring pressing questions about free speech, immigration, and economic inequality, among other topics. These salons offer students the opportunity to engage deeply with what it means to be a citizen in an informal setting, while fostering the kind of respectful, rigorous exchange essential to democratic life.
While class discussions focus on analyzing specific texts and arguments, the salons offer a more open-ended format where students can investigate with faculty experts how the course content connects to their own experiences and the world they're navigating. Faculty may start with a prompt or a small-group activity to ground the discussion in some specifics, but then the conversation will open up to concerns and ideas that are top of mind to the participants. Rather than seeking definitive answers, these conversations aim to illuminate complexity and build capacity for thoughtful political engagement.
In Winter Quarter 2026, salons are being held Thursdays 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. (NB: The salon in Donner about constitutions will be held on Tuesday, February 17, at 7:00 p.m.)
Photo by Nikolas Liepins - Ethography