“I think the biggest indicator of success is when the conversation continues after the event ends,” says Elisabeth Snyder, AB’25, a first-year Law School student and copresident of the University of Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression Student Board.

Snyder and copresident Syed Ahmad, a graduate student at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and at Chicago Booth, share responsibility for organizing student-focused events that foster free expression on campus. When the Chicago Forum was founded in fall 2023, Snyder and Ahmad reached out to see how they could participate. By the end of the Chicago Forum’s first year, the two were helping build the student board from the ground up.

The copresidents complemented each other well. Ahmad, a consultant who aspires to run for political office one day, was excited about the “opportunity to design an organization from scratch” and remembers early conversations with Snyder as very practical ones about defining roles and reporting lines. Snyder, who wants to do legal work related to civil liberties and the First Amendment, was especially interested in how they would structure events to bring together different perspectives. The two worked with Talla Mountjoy, MBA’18, the Chicago Forum’s director of programs, to develop a plan for student engagement that prioritizes representation from across the University and events related to various fields of study.

“The mission of the forum [is] to promote the understanding, practice, and advancement of free and open discourse,” Ahmad says. Fostering this kind of dialogue, he and Snyder realized, required a multifaceted approach. In the more than 50 events they hosted for students in the 2024–25 academic year, the board aimed for a mix of programming that responded to current affairs or that allowed students to delve into niche topics related to their areas of study.

Ideas for field-specific events come from the 40 students who, along with the copresidents, make up the board, which includes representatives from each school and division plus a few special interest groups. Members are all responsible for pitching and planning events related to their areas of study. Ahmad and Snyder, with the four other students who make up the executive board, provide oversight on all programming. Board members “always have an ear to the ground for what folks might be itching for the opportunity to talk about in their school or division,” says Snyder.

Last year, for example, students in the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine collaborated on an event about what, ethically, ought to be done with human remains. Another conversation, organized by the Divinity School and the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, had to do with free speech in the therapeutic space.

Understanding that not all students might be comfortable throwing themselves into difficult conversations, the board tries to ensure their events model the kind of respectful, curious debate the forum supports in general. They’ve discovered a few especially successful approaches, like prioritizing panel discussions that highlight speakers with diverse backgrounds and opinions, having students moderate conversations, leaving plenty of time for questions, and hosting small group dinners.

To give students more chances to debate and hone their own ideas, a board member from the Division of the Social Sciences came up with the idea of “intellectual speed dating,” in which students in small groups discuss a given question for a few minutes at a time and then rotate. Ahmad describes the atmosphere of these events as “electric” and says he hopes to put on more events that allow students to interact with their peers in this way.

In addition to involving the broader student body in the mission of the forum, Ahmad and Snyder make sure that their fellow board members come away from their leadership roles with fulfilling professional experience gained by organizing events from start to finish. They point out that planning these events is an opportunity for the students, who might otherwise have little interaction with those outside their school or area of study, to collaborate across fields.

The copresidents are getting a lot out of this too. Ahmad plans to return to consulting after graduation and believes events such as intellectual speed dating have helped him build more confidence in sharing opinions on challenging topics. The business world benefits, he says, when there are “employees who are willing to say the difficult thing when it needs to be said.”

Snyder has valued learning from the forum’s staff members about how to work in a professional environment to create successful programming. “It’s so wonderful to observe events that we put on, and after the event is done, as the conversation is still going between students, to listen in on what they’re saying and hear the passion with which they’re speaking, but also the respect,” says Snyder. “It makes me hopeful for the future of political discourse.”

This past quarter, events organized by the Chicago Forum Student Board increased in number and scope. They covered wide-ranging topics including national security reporting, the ethics of genetic engineering, the New York City mayoral election, and academic freedom in the age of artificial intelligence.

Events in the 2024–25 academic year

• Events in Autumn Quarter 2025: 50+
• Attendance at events in the 2024–25 academic year: 30
• Approximate attendance at events in Autumn Quarter 2025: 1,300+
• Approximate attendance at events in Autumn Quarter 2025: 987