ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) - June 2026
Last week, retired Lieutenant General Jay Silveria, the current President of the University of Arkansas System, came to speak to about 70 people from the League of Women Voters of Washington County for Drinks & Dialogue at our gracious host location, Crisis Brewing in Fayetteville. Silveria went through the entire room, from table to table, introducing himself and having conversations with everybody who engaged with him.
Our League initially became aware of Silveria from a 2017 YouTube video that went viral for its strong message about respecting all people, regardless of differences. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core commitments of the League of Women Voters, so we invited President Silveria to come and speak to us about how to have hard conversations with people from different economic backgrounds, lived experiences, cultures, and belief systems.
He spoke at length about the university system and how extensive it is. He educated us that there are 77,000 students across the state and 27,000 employees. He also shared with us that the university receives $500 million from the state, but the return on that investment benefits Arkansas by $5 billion. Silveria also told us about the UA System’s mission to strengthen the state’s economy, health, and culture.
After discussing the UA System, Silveria told some “leadership lessons I’ve had to learn.” He said, “All good stories start with, “There I was. I was running all the air operations in the Middle East. We were flying hundreds of operations. It took weeks and weeks of planning. Everything you can imagine was going to be involved.” He explained that he failed to prepare properly for a military mission and that this failure taught him that sometimes the person in the room with the most impactful things to say is a soft-spoken, 5-foot-tall, junior-ranking millennial woman. Silveria said her job was to review all of the intelligence points and list everything they didn’t know. She recommended that they not go on the mission. It was totally unexpected, and if they hadn’t listened to her, the mission would have failed. But she revealed to them their lack of preparation so they could course correct and have a successful mission.
He understood that his audience, a room full of educated women, had all experienced what the woman in his story had experienced. We have all been in meetings when we knew the answers to important questions, had solutions to problems, and had been dismissed, diminished, or talked over by loud men who thought they knew better. He understood that, and he took responsibility for having been guilty of perpetuating that reality. But he learned from that mistake, and that military mission succeeded because of his willingness to listen and adapt. “I never forgot that moment when I could have supported her, and I didn’t. There is a risk that you are taking if you don’t listen to everybody in the room. You are discounting ideas and putting lives at stake.”
Silveria also said he had a practice of challenging cadets to go to seminars presented by people they might not like, to learn another perspective.
Silveria fielded questions after his talk, actively engaging in hard discussions on topics such as the new law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments at the university, the Swarm Aero controversy, the firing of a professor, and a call for the university to take responsibility for ensuring students get registered to vote and be civically engaged. Silveria demonstrated, in real time, how to have challenging discussions and show up for community.
“It is a privilege to hear ideas that you disagree with,” Silveria said.
We are grateful to all of our speakers who donate their time and talents to help our community advance our understanding so that we can be more effective in our civic engagement. And we are grateful to Crisis Brewing for providing a space for respectful civic engagement. This is the work of democracy. Thank you for doing this work with us.
Read reporter Doug Thompson’s article about this event in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
We hope you will join the League of Women Voters of Washington County as we show our support in the NWA Pride Parade on June 27th at 6 p.m. Email at lwvarwc@gmail.com for more information. Or just show up!
Join your League in the Parade as we show our Pride!
