Brave Conversations

Brave Converstations

Brave Conversations

Student Leadership & Involvement, in collaboration with the Undergraduate Certificate in Dialogue, Conflict Resolution, and Mediation Certificate Program, are excited to create a space for students to engage in brave conversations. Brave Conversations will serve as a platform for students to engage in interpersonal dialogue with peer students from around campus, led by peer students studying conflict in the Department of Communications.

We know that conflict is unavoidable, and in many cases, conflict can be healthy. We are hoping to give students the opportunity to think and work through conflict and communication styles. The goal of these Brave Conversations is to create a facilitated space where students can engage in dialogue around complex issues. Though this process students will develop their ability to:

Cultivate a mindset of curiosity
Actively engage in tough topics despite difference in values
Practice listening skills that promote understanding and productive disagreemeny

Natasha Seegert, is a professor in the Department of Communication where she also serves as the Director of the Conflict Resolution Program. Her teaching focuses on dialogue and conflict, argumentation, community engagement, and environmental communication. In her work on dialogue and conflict, she cultivates curiosity and complexity as an antidote to uninformed certainty and toxic caricatures which dominate public discourse. Her environmental work explores the intersections and relationships between the human animal, and the more-than-human animals as represented in media.

Student Leadership & Involvement