Understanding

decision and make a decision quickly. You don’t — you can’t wait to check all the boxes. You can’t wait to get all the information you need. You’ve got to make decisions. You’ve got to make them quickly. And sometimes you’ll be wrong. But wrong is better than nothing.” omas-Green eld also highlighted the importance her career.

“Challenge your doubts, just challenge them,” omas-Green eld said. “I challenge my fears, my team knows I’m afraid to y all the time. Big planes, little planes, whatever. I’m absolutely afraid to y. I’m on a plane almost every other day. But doubts can hold what I need to respond to.”

Some questions focused more on pressing international a airs. Bennett Hawley ’23 asked her about the role of the U.S. military and humanitarian forces in responding to the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria. e military is there, you just don’t see it,” omasGreen eld said. “I mean, this kind of crisis, it does take a while to mobilize… the rst stage is just to rescue people and to try to save lives and get those who are injured to a place where they can be assisted. But when I talk to the NGOs, when I talk to the U.N., what they want is money. at’s what they need to get money in people’s hands so they can buy blankets, they can get shelter, they can get food.” of compassion and nding common ground to promote a healthier and more impactful dialogue.

In response to a question from e Flat Hat about potential Security Council reforms, omas-Green eld described her e orts and ideas to make the Council more representative of its member states.

“We think the Security Council doesn’t represent what the world looks like now,” omas-Green eld said. “When the Security Council was created … [there were] maybe 40 countries. We have 193 countries in the U.N. [today], and the Security Council is not representative of the 193.” omas-Green eld explained that she is currently on a listening tour across the U.N. to come up with a comprehensive reform and discussed potential reforms to the P5’s veto power.

“My approach to negotiation is I always get to know the person I’m going to negotiate with, you know, and it always takes them o guard,” omas-Green eld said.

“I might spend the rst 10 minutes of a conversation just shooting the bull, but once I get a piece of information I want, then I move into what I need.”

Students also asked the Ambassador questions that hit closer to home for most college students. Elijah Tsai ’25 asked omas-Green eld how she overcame doubts about her future and made di cult decisions throughout you back. And so you need to challenge your doubts, Question your doubts. Why are you doubting? Why are you thinking something di erent?”

Katherine Walter ’25 asked omas-Green eld for advice on how to get out of your own head and think of things spontaneously.

“When I’m sitting at the [Security] Council table and the Russians say something really stupid that I have to respond to, I’m writing notes to myself, texting my team, I need to respond to this,” omas-Green eld said. “I’m constantly writing what other people are saying. So if I need to respond, I got in my head what they’re saying and

“We’ve also announced we’re not willing to give up the veto power and we don’t think others should have the veto power,” omas-Green eld continued. “So nobody agrees with us on that. But what we have said is we will limit our use of the veto power and we supported a resolution put forward by Liechtenstein as co-sponsor that requires the P5 when they use their veto power, we have to come and explain to the entire U.N. membership why we felt necessary to use the veto power.”

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others through conversation: Arts and Sciences speaker series

Author Colum McCann gives lecture in Commonwealth Auditorium, discusses important of oral history, diversity

BETSY MAHONEY CHIEF STAFF WRITER ursday, Feb. 16, acclaimed author Colum McCann spoke at the Commonwealth Auditorium in the Sadler Center for the inaugural Arts and Sciences Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 2023 Spring Speaker Series. In his lecture titled “How Storytelling Can Heal the World,” McCann spoke about the importance of sharing stories and how it can help bridge di erences between people.

According to his webpage, McCann is an Irish writer of literary ction who has seven novels, three collections of stories and two works of non ction to his name. Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, McCann is the recipient of numerous international awards, including the U.S. National Book Award, several European awards and an Oscar nomination. In addition to his various accolades, McCann was elected to the American Academy of Arts in 2017.

Colum McCann is the President and cofounder of Narrative 4, a nonpro t global story exchange organization. According to the organization’s webpage, it o ers educators creative tools to teach empathy and develop strong student leaders in the classroom and community.

“When we tell our stories, it seems sometimes we are increasingly putting parameters on ourselves, putting down borders and then we handcu the stories somehow that they have to win a battle that, you know, you’re wrong, I’m right,” McCann said. “Don’t step into my world and I’ll stay away from my truth. And the more and more we see this sort of narcissistic need for us to be correct.”

McCann also pointed out that people are too guarded to connect with one another, resulting in a lack of trust and understanding.

Still, McCann believes that sharing our stories might be one of the few things that can actually help us as storytelling can exhibit the possibility of emergence.

“And then our idea of stories and storytelling might be crimped by our politics, by the disease, as I say, of this certainty that the lungs of the world get increasingly sort of walled o and shrunken,” McCann said.

“And by our lack of ability to get outside of ourselves, that our empathetic possibility gets walled o and we are in danger. Maybe we always were becoming so atomized, so small, and lack of a ection for others becomes astounding.”

Students and faculty attended McCann’s talk. Blaze Banks ’25 learned about the event from his government professor, who emphasized the power of storytelling as an important democratic teaching practice.

“ ere was one quote that he had that was something like, ‘You can hate each other and you can go to war with each other, but you’re doomed if you don’t understand each other,’” Banks said. “And this related all to what he was talking about storytelling and how sometimes the bounds of certainty aren’t something that you need to have in order to have e ective arguments or e ective conversations because there’s a lot of nuance to things in how people perceive things. So as long as you understand where people are coming from and how people come about their stories and opinions, you can e ectively facilitate conversations and change.”

Owen Wooliever ’26 also attended the event. He believed that McCann’s lecture was an informative experience that called attention to the significance of unity and compassion.

“Something that stood out to me was when he was talking about mystery and how mystery brings us all together,” Wooliver said. “I think that’s de nitely the case with bringing people together through storytelling. I liked how he drew the parallels to our current political state.” e importance of listening is another important point that McCann emphasized, as it enhances people’s ability to empathize with one another and make people better communicators. McCann believes that listening can lessen the divide of severance.

“Yet what we now have to tell stories about in order to look at our truest and darkest part of ourselves has no need for a history lesson here,” McCann said. “But so much, it seems, times have changed but so little has changed. We like to think we’re binding our imaginations together in some vast global e ort. But so much of the time, it seems to me, that we’re closing down the curtains and locking down the GPS coordinates on our imaginations.”

Through storytelling, McCann believes that barriers can be broken, especially when people listen and converse with one another.

“Empathy is a muscle, and it’s a muscle that needs to be exercised and reexercised,” McCann said. “What happens if the simple act of listening and talking becomes the thing that bolsters our very notion of peace, equality, democracy and understanding?”