Making a Difference Through Dialogue

Faculty Development

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Have you experienced difficult dialogues in your classroom? Do you want to be better prepared to facilitate controversial topics in an effective way? If you want to work on these skills and improve your teaching effectiveness, become a Difficult Dialogues Faculty Fellow!

In our lively interactive workshops, you will:

• Learn classroom techniques in conflict resolution and deliberation
• Practice the learned techniques, Respond to classroom scenarios, and Encourage cross-cultural empathy through interactive theatre
• Gain awareness of diversity issues in higher education related to race, gender, sexual orientation and religious literacy.

“I loved this program and found it really useful because it creates a forum for discussing and trying out methods for promoting constructive conversations about sensitive subjects in the classroom.”
Katherine Reed – Faculty Fellow

Each Fellow will then develop a teaching module incorporating the religious/cultural underpinnings of any number of contemporary issues relevant to his/her discipline that might spark tension or controversy in the classroom.

Fellows will be asked to engage students in rigorous course assignments designed to address religious pluralism, academic freedom and difficult dialogues.

In the Summer 2009, the Chancellor’s Diversity Initiative plans to sponsor a Summer Institute, which will be a “train-the-trainer” opportunity for several Missouri and Big XII schools. The plan is to provide these training opportunities as part of the capacity-building portion of MU’s $100,000 renewal grant.

"I'm very glad I did it because it was well worth it."
Elizabeth Hornbeck - Faculty Fellow

“I thought it was a very worthwhile use of my time!”
Michael Porter – Faculty Fellow

"There were a couple of times that I would have liked to have continued the workshop discussion over lunch."
Elizabeth Wilson – Faculty Fellow