UCC welcomes 2024 Casey Fellow Dr. Niobe Way

Dr. Way is a professor of developmental psychology at NYU, founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity (PACH), and a principal investigator for The Listening Project, a school-based curriculum created to address the global crisis of connection by fostering the practice of listening with curiosity. 

Her latest book is Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture (2024). She has also authored Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection (2011), and is currently working on The Culture/Nature Clash and Its Violent Consequences. 

In Dr. Way’s own words, her long-ranging studies with boys and young men have yielded four key learnings:  

“We’ve learned boys want friendships — not just buddies with whom they can play games. They want someone with whom they can share their vulnerabilities and not be laughed at. They want meaningful, connected same-sex friendships.”

“Boys link [meaningful friendships] to their mental health. We have to stop thinking mental health is the problem. It’s the crisis of connection that leads to mental health problems. So, fostering connection is the solution…”

“As boys grow, they face pressures to ‘man up’ or ‘be a man,’ but also to be mature. It’s bizarre in American culture that maturity and manhood mean the same thing. It means hyper individualism: ‘I can do it myself; I don’t need others.’ It’s the American cowboy image, and American culture infiltrates everywhere. So, boys start to go underground with what they said before [about friendships], or they talk about how it has become impossible to find the friendships they want, and they become more checked out and angry.” 

“We’ve privileged everything we have masculinized — thinking, autonomy, stoicism — over everything we have feminized — sensitivity, relationships. A culture that gives a masculine identity to thinking and a feminine identity to feeling is going to create a problem. Boys are saying it’s a problem because they think and feel, and to be told to not feel and to only think is going to make someone ultimately disconnect from other people’s humanity.”

We’re eager to hear Dr. Way’s insights and solutions in person. Over the two days she’ll meet with school and student leaders; participate in a discussion of Deep Secrets with a Parents’ Organization and Prep Parents’ Organization book club; give a presentation to the UCC community at the Prep’s Weston Hall; and visit with faculty and staff.