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 disagreement
Brave Conversation #1
This conversation will be held about a week and a half prior to the 2024 Election. With that in mind, this Brave Conversation will be an election precursor. It will provide a space for students from all political ideologies, values, and backgrounds to have a facilitated dialogue around core issues and candidates leading into this years election.
Date: October 23, 2024
Time: 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Location: Pano East
RSVP: TBD
Brave Conversation #2
This conversation will be held about a week following the 2024 Election. With that in mind, this Brave Conversation will be centered on post 2024 Election results. It will provide a space for students from all political ideologies, values, and backgrounds to have a facilitated dialogue related the hopes, fears, and possibilities that the 2024 Election results bring about for students
Date: November 14, 2024
Time: 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Location: Pano East
RSVP: TBD
Meet your Facilitators
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 facilitators receive training in courses that contribute to the undergraduate certificate in "Dialogue, Conflict Resolution, and Mediation." These courses include COMM 3150 Tackling Taboo Topics: Dialoguing Across Differences, COMM 5150 Dialogue and Community Engagement.
Students from all disciplines are encouraged to pursue the interdisciplinary certificate in in "Dialogue, Conflict Resolution, and Mediation."
Past Dialogue Topics
- Thinking Outside of the Box
- Let's Talk About Gender
- Our Environmental Futures
- What it Means to be a "True" American
- Money and Success
- Tell Your Story
- Feminism in the Workplace
- Love, Sex, and Dating
- Religion and Its Impacts on Our Lives
- Underrepresentation