Community Engagement & Leadership

Community Dialogues seek to cultivate connection and deep learning through exploration of critical and contentious issues. This series is focused on providing space for participants to practice the skills of dialogue and deliberation.  We hope to engage in dialogue which:

• Deepens understanding of and advances complex thinking on critical issues and the tensions within them
• Encourages insight into different perspectives
• Creates connection between participants through their stories and experiences
• Facilitate intergroup connections and cultivate community
• Guides exploration of personal ethics, morals, and values  
• Inspires socio-political action, both individual and collective
• Allows participants to practice and cultivate dialogic skills

Community Dialogues is an initiative offered in partnership by Community Engagement & Leadership, the Office of Institutional Diversity, and University Housing & Dining Services - Diversity Initiatives & Programs.

Register Here!

During the 2023-2024 academic year, Community Dialogues took on a Story Circle format. 

Story circles are often understood as deriving from Indigenous traditions that develop a practice for community telling and listening projects. Story circles allow participants to share stories from their own experience or imagination as individuals in a small group. Stories that are shared follow a prompt that relates to the theme of the Community Dialogue. Learn more about story circles.

If you are interested in having CEL host a story circle with your group, please email [email protected].  For preparation and planning purposes, please submit your request at least two (2) weeks in advance.