Digging Deep

Training series helps campus community connect through dialogue

Most Friday mornings during the academic year, you can find a group of staff, faculty, and students gathering on the third floor of Tyler Haynes Commons practicing a skill critical for our lives and the health of our communities: authentic dialogue.

The Community Dialogue Facilitation Network is a growing cohort of facilitators at UR, and the core of the initiative is a training series that explores dialogue design and techniques for leading difficult conversations.

“Time and again, the warmest, most spontaneous conversations I’ve had have been in those training sessions with CDFN members,” said Monti Datta, CDFN steering committee member and associate professor of political science. “The space we’ve created offers a kind of vulnerability that I wish could spread across the entire UR campus — Spiders having fun, digging deep into complex topics, and really bonding as a community.”

CDFN, which is unique to UR, was created by the Office for Institutional Equity and Inclusion in collaboration with Human Resources and with the guidance of experts Matthew Freeman, author of Overcoming Bias: Building Authentic Relationships Across Differences, and David Campt, founder and principal of The Dialogue Co. and co-author of The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects: A Practical, Hands-On Guide. During the six-session program, participants learn group facilitation skills to better lead discussions on polarizing topics; they also learn methods for addressing a range of facilitation-related challenges.

“The program is helping to advance the goal of UR becoming a skilled intercultural community where each person can reach their full potential and thrive,” said Amy Howard, senior administrative officer for equity and community.

About 60 staff, faculty, and students have graduated from the program so far, creating a network of skilled facilitators who can serve as a resource for campus forums and dialogues.

“We now have dozens of staff and faculty on campus trained in the CDFN method,” Datta said. “I am starting to feel more confident that when those next difficult moments arise, we can begin to look at them and grow stronger as a campus community.”

To learn more about the Community Dialogue Facilitation Network and to register for a future cohort, visit equity.richmond.edu/resources/community-dialogue-facilitation-network.html.