Cultivating Agency Towards Civic Dialogues at Marquette University Funded by: American Association of Colleges and Universities Bringing Theory To Practice Jonathan Borja and Kim Jensen Bohat KIM

Rationale Concerns about campus climate, especially peer to peer interactions and classroom Specific concerns about race/ethnicity, religious, immigration, gender/sexuality, and engagement with the Milwaukee community Coupled with political climate Tufts study about faculty not feeling comfortable or supported by administration Encourage increased, high quality dialogue in service learning courses KIM

Dialogue “Dialogue is a process of genuine interaction through which human beings listen to each other deeply enough to be changed by what they learn. Each makes a serious effort to take others’ concerns into their own picture, even when disagreement persists. No participant gives up their identity, but each recognizes enough of the other’s valid human claims that they will act differently toward the other.” – Dr. Harold Saunders, Founder and President of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue Early part of training - what is the difference between dialogue and debate? - debate is very close-minded and looking to discredit the other - dialogue is working towards to understanding the other person's views

Civic Dialogue Program Objectives: To equip our students and campus community with the ability to respect, listen to, and understand multiple perspectives and experiences To train faculty and students from across the disciplines as dialogue facilitators in order to encourage discussion around important social justice issues To improve our overall campus climate by encouraging an increase in opportunities for dialogue in the classroom and beyond KIM

Civic Dialogue Leaders Civic Dialogue Faculty (CDFs) were paired with student Civic Dialogue Leaders (CDLs) to work together to integrate intentional dialogue opportunities into 16 different courses Faculty were charged with integrating the dialogues (face to face, and/or online) with their course learning goals Student staff were charged with journaling their experiences in assisting with these facilitated dialogues - Each CDL received a faculty mentor, some had two - Our task was to work with these faculty mentors to incorporate dialogue on topics into the course curriculum - students also had reflective assignments on our experiences (what goals did we have? what are we nervous about/expecting? what is working in the classroom? is there resistance? etc.)

Topics Gender Sexualities Race/Ethnicity Immigration Religion Milwaukee community These are the topics CDLs worked to cover in our respective classes

Program Participants Dialogue attendees: 16 courses 16 faculty 9 student facilitators, paid $9.25 an hour Estimated 600 students participated KIM

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includes: - graduate & undergraduate students - students from social sciences, communications, humanities, health sciences - 2 males, 7 females - different identities (race/ethnicity, gender expression/sexuality, religion/spirituality, etc.)

Student CDL Training 15 hours of training All day training on facilitation techniques Peer-led trainings about social justice topics, and practice facilitation Online Blog Speaker, Susan Pliner, Intersecting Identities in the Classroom Joint sessions with faculty Showcase Book- Unlocking the Magic Training: - in total, we had 15 hours of training; we had an all-day training on facilitation, and then we as CDLs led trainings on the topics we covered in class (i.e., I led a training on immigration & migration) - we had our online blog where we chronicled our experiences and an opportunity to meet Susan Pliner - about 3 joint sessions with faculty where we discussed what we would be doing - we were also given a book on facilitation at the start of the semester

Faculty Training Three sessions Guest speaker Showcase Book of choice on facilitation Debrief

Jonathan’s Example—CMST 3300 VULNERABLE POPULATIONS: - created a scenario in which the students broke off into groups - purpose: understand the vulnerable population of being an immigrant--how do you speak to those populations when you're working in journalism or advertisement MEDIA INFLUENCE IN SOCIETY: - how has the media influenced the way we communicate & think about certain populations - presented a binary between dominant and subordinate groups where students broke off into small groups and then reported back BOTH WERE SELF-REFLECTIVE ON THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH YEARS STUDENTS PROFESSIONS IN THE COMMUNICATIONS COLLEGE Class Topic: Understanding An Audience—Vulnerable Populations Class Topic: Media Influence on Perceptions of Others

Jonathan’s Example—NURS 1001 COMMUNICATION IN HEALTH PROFESSIONS: - discussed code switching and the difference between descriptive and pejorative words - how can we as health professionals work to be conscious of how we talk with people different from us? - why is it important to understand this? RELIGION & SPIRITUALITY - additional discussion on how religion and sprituality plays into the patients we work with - acknowledging our experiences are not the same for those who do not share our same religion - learning to respect decisions of those individuals Class Topic: Communicating in the Health Professions Class Topic: Religion and Spirituality

Other Examples of Course Integration Large and small group facilitation Lesson planning Online discussions Grading Preparation on group project

Lessons Learned Dedication and intentionality Hard to get past the choir Limited peer resistance Dialogue improved the quality of student work Value of peer led, modeling Faculty struggled to integrate students More intentional discussion, built into syllabus More training prior to the semester- students wanted more time and training Incentivizing faculty

How might you do something similar on your campus? Discussion How might you do something similar on your campus?