Nashville Public Television is partnering with the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy to adapt the project into a multipart series for digital and broadcast consumption. The Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy will premiere on NPT Thursday, Nov. 16, at 8:30 p.m. CT and will be available on the PBS app. Unity Project co-chairs Gov. Bill Haslam and Samar Ali discuss what they’ve learned in the two years since the project’s inception in a show airing Nov. 16, at 9:30 p.m.
“The series exemplifies our commitment to free expression and highlights the essential role evidence-based reasoning must play in the national conversation,” said Geer. “Our ideologically charged environment has made it hard to have tough-but-necessary conversations on university campuses and beyond. These kinds of efforts and Vanderbilt’s newly launched Dialogue Vanderbilt initiative, which includes the Unity Project, seek to build bridges across this divide as we work to solve our country’s most pressing problems.”
Under the partnership, NPT is creating six digital episodes for various platforms, the 60-minute broadcast special and the 30-minute panel discussion for broadcast. In addition, NPT is developing related materials for PBS LearningMedia, a resource of free, curriculum-aligned videos, interactive resources and lesson plans for teachers.
“Nashville Public Television is excited to create this important content for digital and broadcast audiences,” said Becky Magura, NPT’s president and CEO. “It will also be a great opportunity to extend that conversation with a companion panel discussion that will engage our community.”
The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy was established with the premise that the country has become disconnected from evidence. Its co-chairs are Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Chair in American Presidency at Vanderbilt University; former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam; and Samar Ali, research professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt and former White House Fellow. The project seeks to supplant ideology with fact to reshape the national conversation, offering solutions beyond reflexive ideological assertions.