'Building Community Through Difficult Conversations' training series kicks off Oct. 23; register today!
The WWU Faculty Senate and Western's Office of Equity are partnering on "Building Community Through Difficult Conversations," a year-long training and discussion series for faculty, staff, and students. Registration is required for all the events in the series; participants can register here.
The kick-off event, "Mindset and Communication Skills," will be held on from 4:30-6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 23, during national Free Speech week, in the Wilson Library Reading Room. This session will be repeated on Nov. 13. This in-person, expert-led training is limited to 50 attendees per session, and attendance is strongly recommended before participating in the Winter/Spring events. (These events will also be recorded and available through the Faculty Senate website.)
Two Winter quarter and two Spring quarter events will each consist of a facilitated model conversation by two faculty members who hold opposing views on a subject, followed by an invitation for audience participation in small groups. These face-to-face sessions will be organized around controversial topics of current interest, beginning with less emotionally and politically charged issues and gradually working up to more fraught topics as participants become adept. The Faculty Senate and Office of Equity are developing the list of topics and will put out a call for faculty conversation partners in mid-October, with the final selections announced in November.
In a time of deep division in communities and on campuses, there is an urgent need to build spaces that support and facilitate communicating across differences. Research from across the disciplines demonstrates that empathy for those we disagree with is a learnable skill, and that it can benefit the individual and society.
Series website: https://facultysenate.wwu.edu/building-community-through-difficult-conversations