Creating Passion and Capacity for Dialogue in Community

August 7-9, 2024

University of Dayton Campus

In our national discourse, dialogue is often offered as a solution to misunderstandings, division, and conflict. In its ubiquity, we might lose sight of what it means and entails.

Join us at for a two-and-a-half day institute to learn more about what dialogue is and how it differs from other ways of engaging people with diverse views. The staff of UD’s Dialogue Zone will guide you through the steps to build a truly dialogic space and the skills required to facilitate dialogue, from community norms to validating feelings, and managing triggers and the emotions that come with dealing with controversial and challenging topics.  Strengthening your organization’s capacity for dialogue can build understanding, inclusion, respect, cooperation, and community among members.

What You Gain from Participating

After completing the institute, you will be able to:

• Differentiate dialogue from other forms of communication
• Learn basic skills for facilitating challenging conversations
• Explore how people express diverse social identities in the views, values, and perceptions that they share in dialogue
• Identify privilege and power structures and examine their implications in dialogue
• Design and facilitate dialogue experiences for a variety of audiences

Tentative Schedule of Events

Participants will learn how to facilitate difficult conversations in their organization and to create a culture of understanding over two and a half days.  Participants will receive a certificate at the closing of the institute.

Wednesday, August 6, 2024

6:00-7:00 PM - Dinner

7:00-7:30 PM - Opening Remarks and Introductions

7:30-8:15 PM - Dialogue

8:15-8:30 PM - Closing Remarks.  What to Expect.

Thursday, August 7, 2024

9:00-9:50 AM - Group Introductions.  Differentiating Dialogue, Discussion, and Debate.

10:00-11:15 AM - Setting Up the Dialogue

11:20 AM-12:00 PM - Speaking Concisely.  Active Listening

12:00-1:00 PM - Lunch

1:00-2:30 PM - Promoting Understanding through Clarifying Questions, Probing Questions, and Paraphrasing

2:45-3:15 PM - Validating Participants

3:15-4:00 PM - Practice Dialogue

4:00-4:30 PM - Areas of Discomfort.  Wrap-Up.  What to Expect Tomorrow.

Friday, August 8, 2024

9:00-9:30 AM - Review of Concepts from Previous Day

9:30-10:00 AM - Triggers and How to Acknowledge Them

10:10-11:00 AM - Leaning into Conflict as Opportunities for Understanding

11:10 AM-12:00 PM - Exploring Emotions in Dialogue

12:00-1:00 PM - Lunch

1:00-1:50 PM - Balancing Power through Multipartiality.  Identifying, Examining, and Questioning Master Narratives

2:00-2:50 PM - Dialogue and Debrief

3:00-4:00 PM - Using Dialogue in Your Organization

4:00-4:30 PM - Closing

Questions?  Email us at dialoguezone@udayton.edu.