Bridge St. Thomas, a new club on campus this semester, is hoping to “bridge” students from all political affiliations by creating an inclusive forum of civic dialogue.

Senior Matt Kearney is the club’s president and hopes to create this forum by inviting a range of political beliefs and ideologies that come from different backgrounds.

“My goal [is] to definitely create a space and encourage students to come to this space where they’re able to talk and…learn more about other political ideas, why those ideas exist and why their own ideas exist,” Kearney said.

During the first meeting on Feb. 27, the members of the club FaceTimed Kearney’s brother Packy, who helped found the first chapter of BridgeUSA at the University of Notre Dame.

After conservative speaker Ann Coulter visited their campus, Packy and his friends stayed up all night discussing their different political opinions.

“One of us said, ‘Look, how lovely is it that we can all sit down as friends, politely and civilly discuss this very controversial topic, then go to bed and wake up tomorrow and still be friends. Wouldn’t that be lovely if we could do that on a campus wide basis?’” Packy said.

Packy explained how the club was founded and started the discussion on virtuous discourse, which he said is the practice of building up character through discussing something that matters.

The idea of a new chapter at St. Thomas began about a year and a half ago when Kearney and some friends got the idea from his brother. Now, in their last semester at St. Thomas, the seniors are the board members — Kearney as president, Evan Kalb as vice president, Warren Melton as secretary, George Grandgenett as treasurer and Annie Youngblood as moderator.

Kearney, who is studying mechanical engineering, thinks that a club like Bridge St. Thomas is important to have on a college campus.

“You catch students at a critical phase in their life,” Kearney said. “I think…a forum like this, encourages different beliefs [from] different backgrounds but more importantly teaches students what to do with that.”

First-year student Simon Savvateev thought the first meeting was very productive. Eleven people attended the meeting, including the five board members. It started with a simple discussion question: Is a hotdog a sandwich? Reaching no final conclusion, the dialogue transitioned to whether or not water is wet.

“It was nice to be in a setting (where) you can communicate your viewpoints without a lot of judgement in the room,” Savvateev said.

Youngblood, a double major in justice and peace studies and environmental science, serves as a neutral moderator to make sure all conversation is respectful and virtuous.

“Hopefully we won’t start off a meeting saying liberals think this and conservatives think this,” she said. “We would simply talk about our positions and why we come from that position, disregarding all party lines.”

Bridge St. Thomas will meet on a weekly basis, alternating each week with discussion of a semester-long overarching topic and current events. This semester, the overarching topic is gun policy.

“It is particularly relevant right now considering the social movements arising from Parkland among other incidents of gun violence,” Youngblood said.

“In Bridge, people don’t (care) about your political affiliation,” Savvateev said. “They just want to hear what you want to say and why you think this way.”

Samantha HoangLong can be reached at hoan1058@stthomas.edu.