In order to successfully navigate our rapidly changing world, it’s paramount that students seek to achieve academic excellence throughout their journey at John Jay College. The students featured in our “Academic Excellence” article series have actively demonstrated an outstanding ability to excel in their educational endeavors. As a result of their intellectual capacities, finely honed skills, and altruistic leadership qualities, these students are often selected for competitive programs, awards, scholarships, fellowships, and research opportunities that further enrich their studies. We hope that their accomplishments inspire us all to pursue excellence in our own academic and professional journeys.   

After working for a year on developing and implementing a Listening Curriculum program with her fellow Honors Program students, Liz Torres ’22, a Law and Society major, is thrilled to see her hard work and dedication pay off. Under the guidance of Professor Evan Mandery, Torres and five other research students were recently named winners of the highly esteemed Clinton Global Initiative award for their curriculum that aims to foster better listening skills. “The Clinton Foundation is led by former President Bill Clinton, his daughter Chelsea Clinton, and other selected members,” says Torres. “The program is really great because it promotes student research by providing stipends, resources, and mentoring to help students develop their research projects and reach their goals.” For Torres, this opportunity is equipping her with the tools she needs to move forward as she pursues a certificate in Dispute Resolution. “A huge part of dispute resolution is being able to listen to the other party. You can’t successfully negotiate without understanding the other party’s needs and allowing the other party to understand your needs as well. I think that a lot of people can benefit from the research we are doing, because listening is key to being in conversation with anyone in any given situation.”

Where did the idea of establishing a listening curriculum come from?
The idea started with Professor Mandery. He was interested in what it means to be a good listener. We, the students, all contribute a unique perspective because we all come from different majors. We realized that people are always going to be in conversation with each other, and it’s important to know how you are going to show up in a conversation and how you project yourself. We concluded that for someone to be a good listener, they have to be fully present. A lot of people consider themselves good listeners, but it’s important to ask yourself: “Are you really listening to what someone is saying or are you just waiting to offer advice without considering what the person is saying or how they are feeling at the moment?” We officially got together as a group around March of 2020 and we began the first session of implementing the small curriculum during the summer, followed by another session in the fall semester.

Can you tell us a little about the listening curriculum and the methodology used for collecting data?
The listening curriculum is part of a capstone project that will be running until May 28. We began by administering the curriculum with John Jay Honors students. The sessions are small courses where we deliver lesson plans, as well as ask participants to journal their experience. This semester, we're also conducting an adult session for group members of The League of Women Voters. I’m helping Professor Mandery facilitate it once a month. Hopefully, we can acquire a good amount of data to assess at the end of this program. To collect data, we administer a pre-test and a post-test. The pre-test is a questionnaire that measures the participant’s empathy, their trust, and how they see themselves as listeners in the beginning. We administer the same test at the end to see if there is improvement. Throughout the curriculum, we play small games, we host debates, and we incorporate improv scenarios that help participants be present and in the moment. We also have the participants interact in a storytelling game that’s designed to improve listening skills. Someone begins a story, and the next person has to add on to the story, but also mention the first part that the person before them said. The point of the game is to see how much they pay attention to details during conversations. We also offer moments to reflect on when participants felt listened to. We challenge them to see if they can have conversations with someone who holds an opposing view, and see if it’s impossible to have those conversations and find out how they think they can achieve it.

How would you like to see your research findings implemented in the real world?
If our research shows promising results that our curriculum helps people develop better listening skills, I hope that people can start to implement this kind of curriculum in schools. Ideally, I would see it implemented in the classroom for K-12 students. I think students, in general, can benefit from the listening curriculum because listening is an important life skill. You have to be able to effectively communicate, and it’s beneficial to learn and practice these skills at a younger age so that when you enter the workforce you are adept at communicating with others.

What was it like working with Professor Mandery?
He’s a great mentor. I can always rely on him if I have a question. He always gives me honest, straight forward answers, and that’s something I appreciate. He always listens and offers advice to help us better ourselves. Professor Mandery lets us know what areas we can continue to work on, so that we can become better students and better people in general.

What are your goals and aspirations for the future?
I hope to go to law school once I graduate from John Jay. I’m not sure what branch of law I want to go into yet, but I am looking into being a criminal defense lawyer. But that can change because I am loving mediation as well. I’m currently a student mediator for the New York State Attorney General’s office and I’m really enjoying the mediation work.