Building Community at the 21st-Century University: Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and Columbia University President Jennifer Mnookin with MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire

What does it mean to build a university community at a moment when the very idea of community feels fraught? Join Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier and Columbia University President Jennifer Mnookin for a conversation on the future of campus life, moderated by MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire.

College campuses have long been places where people encounter ideas, experiences, and perspectives radically different from their own. But how can universities make those differences a meaningful part of education rather than a source of deeper division? How should institutions balance free expression and civil discourse with the responsibility to create environments in which students can learn and thrive? And as artificial intelligence transforms how we teach, study, research, and even think, what aspects of a university education become more vital to our society?

Diermeier, an internationally renowned political scientist and management scholar, has made free expression and civil discourse central to his leadership at Vanderbilt. Mnookin, a nationally recognized legal scholar who became Columbia’s 21st president in 2026, previously served as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she launched major initiatives around artificial intelligence, interdisciplinary research, and intellectual pluralism and dialogue across difference.

Hear them in conversation as they explore what universities owe their students and society, how campuses can engage in respectful disagreement across differences, and what it will take to create intellectually vibrant communities for the 21st century.