Department of Communication

2023-24 Awarded Amount: $3,915

Title: Cultivating Community and Civility through Dialogue

Many thanks to the Dee Grant Foundation for their support of my grant, Cultivating Community and Civility through Dialogue. The funds provided by the grant were used in two primary ways: professional trainings for myself in dialogue facilitation, and for dialogue events. More importantly, the trainings paid for by the grant supported the development of three new courses taught during the 2023-2024 academic year. A summary, and highlights, of these outcomes includes the following:

Professional Development through Dialogue Trainings. The following workshops were paid for by the Dee Grant and supported the development of new courses, as well as community outreach on campus and in Salt Lake City.

  • Dialogic Classroom Workshop for Secondary School Educators. This training by Essential Partners provided me with the tools to educate K-12 teachers on how to foster curiosity within their curriculum through structured dialogues. Cultivating curiosity included pedagogical approaches in the classroom regarding complex topics; how to better approach disagreement amongst faculty, staff and administration; as well as how to better engage parents regarding their children’s learning.
  • Advanced Facilitation Workshop. This training by Essential Partners provided me with the skills to craft and facilitate community dialogues regarding contentious issues. In addition, it provided knowledge regarding how to prepare for hot-button issue dialogues, ranging from pre-dialogue interviews to identifying community leaders who can model how to advance dialogue around contentious issues. This workshop served me in the classroom, as well as in larger community through community-engaged learning that engaged both the Salt Lake and campus communities.
  • Deep Dive, Summer-Intensive Dialogue Training. This training, also provided by Essential Partners, will involve thirty-three hours of learning, discussion, and reflection so that I can lead dialogic initiatives on campus. This training will serve for future courses and campus initiatives.

Development and Teaching of Three New Courses. The following courses were developed and taught in the 23-24 academic year. All courses were directly supported through funding from the Dee Grant in the form of trainings, listed above, and through events.

  • HUM 6900 Dialoguing Across Differences (one of the Tanner Humanities Center's Gateway to Learning K-12 Educator Workshops). In the summer of 2023, thirteen K-12 teachers participated in this summer course. These teachers came from across the Salt Lake valley and included teachers in both charter and regular public schools. Their specialties included language arts, mathematics, history, science, psychology, and early-elementary education. Using skills and concepts gained in the training addressing dialogic classroom techniques in secondary education, I worked with the thirteen teachers to provide them with these skills on how they could utilize dialogue in their classrooms and in other school contexts. Teachers reported that they wish everyone was required to engage in these dialogues and left with concrete ideas of how they could implement dialogue into their classrooms and into their conversations with parents.

Relationships with teachers continued after the conclusion of the course and resulted in a community-engaged-learning partnership with Mountain View Elementary.

  • COMM 3150 Foundations of Argument, Conflict and Dialogue. In this fall 2023 class, twenty-three students explored how conflict surrounding contentious topics can be approached through dialogue. Specifically, students developed and then held structured dialogues on abortion, and then on issues surrounding gender. The latter occurred after the campus conflicts between student groups regarding transgender issues and freedom of speech. Through advanced work, using the models taught in the trainings, students were willing to be both vulnerable and curious about complex topics.

Students worked with the organization, Unify America, to have a one-on-one Zoom conversation with a fellow college student elsewhere in the US who holds different views on hot-button issues. The goal of this exercise was to show students that it is possible to have direct and civil conversations with someone who has different political views. Students reported that this was one of the most impactful political conversations they have had as it allowed for them to engage and explore on topics that they either don’t discuss, or only discuss with people who hold the same views. Unify America produced this video of my students’ thoughts on the experience.

 

 

In addition, students held dialogue booths on campus where they engaged with strangers regarding a specific question used to spark conversation. In just one hour, the question of “Why are you wearing that?” garnered over eighty responses from fellow students. For this event, grant funds were used to purchase “Free Intelligent Conversation” cards from the non-profit Free Intelligent Conversation, and candy to attract other students to their dialogue “booth.” These dialogue booths served as a low-risk and engaging exercise to show that conversations with strangers can be fun, not frightening, something many students struggle with.

  • COMM 5150 Dialogue and Community Engagement. This course was developed and taught for the first time in Spring 2024, enrolling twenty-five students. This course was approved for a Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) designation through the Lowell Bennion Center for Community Engagement (Bennion Center) which resulted in course partnerships with Mountain View Elementary School, the Associated Students of the University of Utah (ASUU), and the Office of the Dean of Students. Students were taught the skills that I had gained in workshops and trainings. They then practiced these skills in the classroom, and finally put them to work outside of the classroom through three different events.

Our first partnership and event involved a collaboration with the Office of the Dean of Students and ASUU. Staff in theses offices were interested in rebuilding trust amongst students following student protests on campus, as well as conflict between two student groups. Both offices were also interested in providing opportunities where students could engage in difficult conversations and have models for how to do so constructively. To begin these conversations, students crafted a dialogue focused on how to push our notions of stereotypes and boxes that we place ourselves and others into. Over forty students signed up for and attended this catered dinner where students from COMM 5150 served as hosts, moderators, and individual table facilitators. Students who attended said they would like to be part of future events and that they would like to have dialogues on more contention topics so that they can put their communication skills to work.

The partnership with ASUU and the Office of the Dean of Students will continue past this class as I work with them to develop a series of “Brave Conversations” surrounding contentious topics on campus.

Our second event involved students working with staff and administration at Mountain View Elementary, a Title I school. There, students crafted an opening dialogue to help develop better relationships between parents and the school, as well as to cultivate stronger ties amongst parents. Students led a dialogue with approximately thirty parents who were available to attend a monthly meeting honoring students. Bilingual college students put their Spanish-language skills to work, facilitating discussions where parents were asked to “describe Mountain View in three words,” to explain what it means to be “invested in your child’s school,” as well as what “hopes” and “concerns” they have regarding their child’s education. Students led small groups of parents through these questions and took notes on responses. These responses were then compiled and sent back to the school so that they could determine how they can begin to better address parent concerns, continue what they are doing well, and to determine how to spark stronger community connections.

The collaboration with Mountain View staff will continue into the upcoming academic year as I continue to work with Mountain view on how to lead their monthly parent meetings so that there is a stronger sense of community.

Our final event was a formal Dialogue Dinner where students developed questions on the theme of Gender. This event served as a celebratory conclusion to the class where students invited friends and family to engage in a structured, facilitated dialogue. The students selected the topic, crafted questions, vetted and revised questions, and then moderated and facilitated the dialogue. The event was catered using Dee Grant funds, and the presence of food served to create ties amongst participants who did not know each other. Students crafted the following questions for this event:

  • What life experience has most significantly taught you about gender? How were you impacted by that experience? (For example, what were the effects on your feelings about yourself and others, about a group, or about a community? Were there any effects on your actions?)
  • Share an experience of your gender in public spaces and how did culture influence that experience? Based on this experience, what would you want to address, change, or explore further?
  • Where do you experience mixed feelings, value conflicts, uncertainties, or other tensions within your overall perspective on the topic of gender?
  • How do you know, or don’t know, you are the gender you identify with? What does it feel like to identify with the gender you do? If you can’t articulate this, why is it difficult?

The Dialogue Dinner was an exciting way to conclude the course as I was able to observe how students had grown in the class and their ability to facilitate a dialogue so that every voice at the table received equal “air time.” Students and guests reported that they learned things they didn’t know, and that it pushed their thinking about the topic in complex ways regarding biology, sexuality, social constructs surrounding gender, as well as ineffable qualities of gender.

Moving Beyond the Classroom. The skills I have gained in the trainings funded by the Dee Grant have resulted in my engagement in contexts beyond the classroom. This includes the following contexts:

  • Giving a three-hour training to undergraduate, peer mentors in the Honors College on the topic of “The Curious Classroom: Dialogue & Dissent.”
  • Offering a workshop to College of Humanities graduate students on “Difficult Classroom Conversations.”
  • Providing resources for Student Affairs staff on “Conversations for Students Engaged in High Conflict” following student protests on campus regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict.
  • Collaborating with the Mountain Mediation Center and Swaner Nature Preserve to hold a dialogue on Nature and Diversity.

Finally, it is always most exciting to hear from students putting these skills to work in their own lives and in the community. Here are four examples of students applying their learning to real-life contexts:

  • One student worked with a youth group in a church who were experiencing conflict and hurt feelings. Using the skills she gained on how to deal with conflict through structured dialogue, she crafted questions and held a formal dialogue for the group of teens where all of the girls participated and responded to each question. One father reported that it was the first time he had his daughter come away from the youth meeting with a smile on her face. Adults who worked with the teens agreed that it is an approach they need to take with each other and with the youth they mentor.
  • Another student serves as a manager in a financial institution. She took some of the listening exercises practiced in the class and had her staff practice them. She reported that staff felt more engaged with each other and are now using these skills with their clients.
  • A student who is part of a Christian Intervarsity Club on campus spent time this summer at Brigham Young University so that he can better understand the Latter-Day Saint faith, and so he can challenge the stereotypes he held of Mormons. He reported that the skills he used in the class, particularly those involving curious questions that seek to understand, challenged his pre-conceived notions and opened up unexpected relationships.
  • Finally, a student served as a volunteer note-taker for Mountain Mediation Center on dialogues focused on health and climate change for residents in Summit County.

I would not have pursued these trainings nor pursued the development of so many new classes had I not received the funding. Thank you for this opportunity!