A UVa student project brings together students with wide range of political, social beliefs. “It s very easy to vilify and argue with people over social media or in another impersonal
The project Gilliam references is a documentary called “Common Grounds,” a semester-long project for Gilliam and several fellow Center for Politics interns. The project team includes Gilliam; second-year students Molly Hayes and Miranda Hirts; third-year government student Sean Piwowar; and School of Education graduate student Victoria Spiotto. All were interns at the Center for Politics this semester.
The documentary, now in editing, will have three parts: individual interviews with students of widely differing political beliefs; a small group discussion bringing some of those students together; and the final scene at Beta Bridge.
“We invited students who were extremely committed to what they believe, at either end of the political spectrum, and who were not going to compromise on things that were important to them,” Piwowar, a government major, said. “Even though their beliefs were very different and they were not necessarily going to compromise on those, they could exp