The Northeastern Open Narratives Club creates a platform for students of all backgrounds to share their opinions and life experiences about a litany of political, economic and social issues that affect the world. 

Max Nadelman, a fifth-year business administration major, began the club with Adin Vashi, the current club president, in 2015 as first-years to bring together varied groups of people for the dialogue discussions. 

“We were thinking that it would be really cool to have a club where we could gather people from diverse backgrounds and have a dedicated time where they could talk about important topics,” Nadelman said. “The club started off mostly with just friends showing up, but when we got into dedicated recruitment efforts, we really started to grow and get new members.”

Nadelman also said there has been a steady and linear progression in membership growth, which has brought new topics and different points of view. Nadelman said club leadership builds interest by linking discussion to the news cycle.

“We try and keep open spots for different current events that are happening. We had an open dialogue last year on the #MeToo movement right when Brett Kavanaugh was in the process of being appointed,” Nadelman said. “I would say that we recycle a lot of topics that are popular, but we want to keep it contemporary.”

Chris Beck, a second-year architecture major and one of the current vice presidents of the club, also spoke on the matter of keeping all topics relevant when choosing the dialogue subjects. “I think what’s good about the topics that we choose is that they can change and evolve over the years,” Beck said. 

Beck, who joined Open Narratives as a first-year, became interested in the club early in his time at Northeastern due to the open nature of the group and the ever-growing coverage of Kavanaugh in the news cycle. The topic was popular in discussion among his friends. 

“I would say that this club is unlike others that may be more cliquey because the nature of the club is talking with strangers about these topics, which made it popular to a freshman like me,” Beck said.

The past few dialogue sessions have dealt with socioeconomic status and consumerism, but the club plans on branching out into climate change in the next few meetings due to its popularity as a discussion topic. 

“Facilitators, who run the dialogues and moderate the meetings, structure the topic selection by what is popular in the news and by what they had been preparing for in the weeks prior,” Nadelman said. “The facilitators don’t necessarily add their opinion but keep the conversation flowing and ask follow-up questions that just move the entire dialogue along.” 

Fanta Fofana, a fifth-year behavioral neuroscience major and first-time facilitator this year, said she enjoys Open Narratives due to the inclusion of so many different topics providing an environment for different people to speak.

“I get to hear so many people with different perspectives and lives. We all think so similarly in our own groups so when we’re here groupthink is avoided since we don’t know one another,” Fofana said. “We have the same conversations with our friends, so why not with strangers where we can hear something new.”