Pache.co Information Technologies

Building Dialogue Based on the Uniqueness of Your Campus
All Levels
As we seek to build dialogue opportunities on different campuses, we at Emory University have latched on to the uniqueness of our climate to create a cocurricular dialogue team. We want to share how we utilized the essence of the debate program to build a six-year going program. We will share the origin of the Emory Conversation Project and show how you can apply these practices at your university or community. Participants will hear directly from participants in the program and get to model a dialogue that we do on campus for one of our signature programs.

Lydia Smith – Assistant Director of Campus Engagement & Barkley Forum for Debate, Deliberation, and Dialogue; Emory University
Students from Emory University’s Emory Conversation Project

Collaboration for Abundance: Give What You Have to Get What You Need
All Levels
Many of our organizations are under-resourced and long for more participants, more diversity of participants and measurable impact after dialogue is complete. Dialogue organizations can also be challenged by a philanthropic environment that encourages competition rather than collaboration. Four organizations: Civic Genius, Living Room Conversations, YOUnify, and Mormon Women for Ethical Government will share how they are addressing these challenges through creative partnerships — and then help participants workshop how they can do the same! This interactive session will help attendees network, reflect on their work and practices, learn new skills, and explore new efforts, projects, and collaborations. Participants will reflect on their work and go through a process of mapping their assets and needs — and then learn how to address those needs through creative collaborations.

Becca Kearl – Executive Director; Living Room Conversations
Brandyn Keating – CEO; YOUnify
Jennifer Walker Thomas – Co-Executive Director; Mormon Women for Ethical Government 
Jillian Youngblood – Executive Director; Civic Genius

DEI Dialogue and Collective Action: Tackling the Challenges of Working within the Higher Education System
All Levels
How can Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Dialogue be used to collectively re-imagine policies, practices, and processes in higher education? What tensions exist between individual change and systemic change? This session will highlight a staff to staff dialogue and deliberation model being used on a university campus to work towards DEI policy and process change. We will share the story of our project and lessons learned. Highlighting the ways we have been attentive to power relationships, we will also discuss the ways we are working to design DEI Dialogue that aims to disrupt traditional patterns of power. 

We will open it up to the group for an interactive dialogue to investigate how others in the field are thinking about: a) the challenges of centering dialogue in collective action; b) balancing individual and systemic change; and c) working to decolonize the decision making process within a culture of white supremacy. Participants will gain an understanding of how dialogue has been used with staff to center DEI action. They will also get a chance to participate in dialogue, thinking together about challenges of this work. Collective imagining and sharing hope is an additional goal of the session.

Nancy Maingi Ngwu – Co-Lead Researcher and Dialogue Designer; University of Colorado Boulder
Jennifer Pacheco – Co-Lead Researcher and Dialogue Designer; University of Colorado Boulder
Karen Ramirez, PhD. – Program Director of the CU Dialogues Program; University of Colorado Boulder

Dialogue Across Differences in the Classroom
Beginner
Go back to school and experience Mismatch as if you were a high school student. Mismatch is a matching, scheduling, and real time video conferencing platform purpose-built for civil discourse. During a live demo of the Mismatch platform session participants will experience a real lesson being used in high schools around the country. During the Mismatched conversation participants will also get the opportunity to network with another participant in the session. After the demo, participants can join a brief Q&A with Mismatch co-creators from Living Room Conversations and AllSides to learn about how they approached building the platform.

John Gable – Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer; AllSides
Becca Kearl – Executive Director; Living Room Conversations 
Samantha Shireman – Director of Product; AllSides

Dialogue as Co-construction in an Adaptation to Climate Change Project
All Levels
All over our states and provinces, people are confronted with the effects of climate change and have to adapt. In a five year research program in collaboration with a Regional Municipal County in the southern part of Québec, we managed to work with stakeholders of different kinds. Challenges of mutual understanding and of “translation” from the technical to the vernacular and vice-versa were part of the game. After having presented our project in its main lines, I want to focus on some experiences of dialogue, by getting back to actual exchanges that took place (by use of transcripted material). 

Alain Letourneau – Professor, Philosophy and Applied Ethics Department; Université de Sherbrooke

Dialogue for Daily Use: How Monastic Rules of Life Can Inform Approaches to Civil Discourse
Intermediate
How can everyone learn from the reflective and disciplined practices faith groups have used at the center of conflict resolution around the world? Join this session to explore how the Christian monastic concept of “a rule of life” can help shape our approach to dialogue in a way that helps people build better habits that align with their daily life experience while reminding ourselves of the need to commit to conflict resolution throughout our daily practice.

Alan Yarborough – Founder; Habits of Discourse

Disruption, Dialogue, and Deliberation: A Pathway to Community Healing
All Levels
Disruption is unavoidable. Each of us is a member of a community that faces tragic events, social pressures, and political polarization. Whether or not you are a practitioner or individual trying to make a difference, this highly interactive workshop outlines a pathway for each of us to recommit to bringing dialogue and deliberation to our communities. We will use current events as a backdrop to collectively ideate solutions, explore research backed tools, and walk away with possible next steps to bring healing to the places we live.

Becca Kearl – Executive Director; Living Room Conversations
D.G. Mawn – President; National Association for Community Mediation

Embodied Dialogue: From the Present to the Emerging Future
All Levels
There are many ways to dialogue but a powerful one that is often overlooked is to move our bodies without words. What does it look like to put a system in motion that’s experiencing an immovable situation and watch it transform toward its aspirational self in embodied dialogue? It’s enlightening and diagnostic in ways that a mental thought process can never be. We will explore and learn how to shape what is currently stuck and move it toward innovative possibility while revealing insights that open us to emergent and creative ways forward. 

Kristin Leydig Bryant – Principal; Clarity at Work
Julie Stuart – Founder & CEO; Making Ideas Visible

Facilitation to Fix Politics, Democracy by Assembly
All Levels
We are AssembleAmerica.org, and we believe that together we can activate true democracy in America through Citizens’ Assemblies. Come to hear our vision and our call to rally everyday Americans behind bringing the Deliberative Wave, that’s flourishing across the world, to America. Learn about our plan to build deliberative democratic capacity in your own community. Participants will engage in a discussion about how we can restore faith in democracy and heal the dysfunction and divides debilitating our national political agency. Our question to you: What are the opportunities and challenges to bringing democracy assembly and facilitated dialogue and deliberation to the American people as a tool to address our most urgent political crises?

Duncan Autrey – Conflict Transformation Facilitator; Omni-Win Project
Nick Coccoma – Communications; Assemble America
Seth Adam Cohen – Executive Director; Assemble America
Geo Stokes – Grassroots Organization; Assemble America

Introducing the Collaborative Discussion Certificate Program
Intermediate
This will be an interactive session designed to introduce participants to the Collaborative Discussion Project (CDP). Participants will learn about different types of certificate programs in collaborative discussion. Participants will be invited to help us imagine how we can expand our certificate program designs to include more participants and diverse sectors of our communities. This exploration will be facilitated by using CDP toolkit activities. Participants will leave this session with 1) a greater awareness of the CDP,  2) a preview of toolkit activities, and 3) an invitation to join our community of practice by becoming a collaborative discussion coach, curriculum contributor, or user of the toolkit.

Lori Britt – Director; James Madison University Institute for Constructive Advocacy and Dialogue
Kara Dillard – Associate Director; James Madison University Institute for Constructive Advocacy and Dialogue
Shannon Wheatley Hartman – Vice President; Interactivity Foundation
Lydia Smith – Assistant Director of Campus Engagement & Barkley Forum for Debate, Deliberation, and Dialogue; Emory University
Megan Smith – Assistant Teaching Professor; University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Key Questions in Dialogue and Deliberation Programs in Higher Education: Insights from North Carolina
All Levels
Dialogue and deliberation is taking root in higher education throughout North Carolina. Three practitioner-scholars doing the work in diverse contexts –  a statewide network, a public institution, and a private institution will explore the history, context, goals, infrastructure, challenges, and outcomes of their dialogue and deliberation initiatives. Participants will engage with key questions related to implementation and gain insights on how to effectively design, build, and sustain dialogue and deliberation initiatives in higher education institutions.

Graham Bullock PhD. – Faculty Director; Davidson College Deliberative Citizenship Initiative
Leslie Garvin – Executive Director; North Carolina Campus Engagement
Kevin Marinelli PhD. – Executive Director of the Program for Public Discourse; UNC-Chapel Hill

Learning to Create Together: Participatory Design of K-12 Civics Education for the 21st Century
All Levels
Schools offer a critical opportunity for kids to gain knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to be active, engaged, and constructive members of the community and society. This would include skills in dialogue and collaborative problem-solving. Unfortunately, the focus of much of the discussion about “civics” focuses on the principles of American democracy and the processes of government, which by themselves do little to actually prepare kids for democracy. 

Learning to Create Together is a proposed process for school districts to engage communities in the design of a comprehensive and systemic civics education experience students, at all levels (K-12), and it begins with creating the desired image of a civic life — something that only the members of the community have the right to do. Participants in this session will help to pilot that crucial step, experiencing the process of making choices about a desired civic life, as if they were the community doing the design. Participants who are interested in civics education might wish to take this concept to their own schools and school districts.

Matthew Shapiro – Organizer; Boisevolve

Organizing Online Community Conversations Using Exploratory Discussions
All Levels
This workshop will focus on how to organize online community conversations using exploratory discussions. Three different organizations will share their 3+ years of experience in organizing ongoing, interactive, online community conversations. Come to learn how we did it and what we learned, take facilitation plans and how-to guides for your own discussions. In this workshop, you will also take part in an exploratory discussion where you can share your own experiences of participating in and/or organizing online discussions. We will share our best practices and learn from each other’s experiences. In developing and leading this workshop, we are open to collaborating with other organizations that have been doing online exploratory discussions.

Laura Black – Communication Studies Professor; Ohio University
Ieva Notturno – Fellow & Facilitator; Interactivity Foundation
Sarah Star – Founder, Democracy Lab; Carroll Community College

Reflecting on the Past, Recommitting to the Future: Deliberating Difficult History in the South
All Levels
In the South, history is never far from the present. Join us as we explore spaces and opportunities for repairing the harm of history told from the settler colonial perspective. Experience a deliberative conversation on a difficult moment in Southern history. Learn strategies and tools from experienced practitioners for embracing hard history, while building civic skills essential for contemporary democracy. Session leaders will share their experiences, as well as tools and resources for, incorporating historic deliberations into a variety of community spaces and educational contexts.

Cristin Brawner – Founder; Southern Deliberative Democracy Network & Cristin Brawner LLC
Nicole Moore – Director of Education; National Center for Civil & Human Rights
Mark Wilson PhD. – Director; Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities, Auburn University

The Challenge of Making Memories: Dialogue and Deliberation on Memorials
Intermediate
Across the U.S., communities are grappling with a variety of questions about memorials–including how to memorialize deeply tragic moments.  Decisions about these memorials have benefitted from thoughtfully- and strategically-designed dialogue and deliberation processes.  In this session, you’ll hear firsthand from both the facilitator of one such process, the chairperson of a 2nd community’s memorial committee, and an expert in trauma healing about how to approach these sensitive endeavors.  You’ll also participate in an exercise where you assume a role based on a type of visitor to a future memorial and consider your needs and wants.

Anne Seymour – Associate Academic Program Director; National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center
Larry Schooler – Senior Director; Kearns & West
Tennille Pereira – Director; Vegas Strong Resiliency Center & 1 October Memorial Committee Chair

The Ripple Effects of Evaluation: Making Space for Unintended Dialogue
All Levels
We plan to begin by sharing a basic understanding of what evaluating the impacts of two coalitions with appreciative inquiry and Ripple Effects Mapping (REM) looked like. We will engage the room with a REM mini-session to offer a sense of what was involved in this work. From there we will discuss a few frameworks of social change evaluation and the questions that arose in our experience of coding these story-points. Lastly, time will be devoted to group discussion around the inherent tensions that exist within qualitative evaluation, such as how to balance respect for peoples’ in-depth stories and connection to each other with the need to produce reports and a finite capturing of data.

Mandy Baily – Florida Sea Grant Living Shoreline Program Assistant & Facilitator; University of Florida
Ramona Madhosingh-Hector – Regional Specialized Agent; University of Florida IFAS Extension

Twenty-five Years of Deliberative Pedagogy in the Whisenton Public Scholars Program
All Levels
The Whisenton Public Scholars Program promotes community-engaged scholarship and teaching at schools and programs with a mission to serve Black, Indigenous and Students of Color and their communities. As the program celebrates its 25th anniversary, it is an opportune time to reflect on the use of deliberative pedagogy in classrooms, on campus, and in the community. This session will bring together a diverse group of scholars who will share their insights into how dialogue and deliberation have enhanced student learning and civic engagement, and how they have addressed issues of social justice, health equity, and Indigenous sovereignty through this approach. Participants will leave with new ideas and tools for promoting dialogue and deliberation in their own work and with a greater appreciation for the value of this approach for higher education and civic engagement.

Terrica Arnold – Director of Operations, Innovation and Community Initiatives; Meharry Medical College
Carma Corcoran – Director, Indian Law Program; Lewis and Clark Law School
James Ford – Assistant Professor Journalism; Hampton University
Casandra Hawkins – Associate Director of Data and Quality Management; Univ. of Mississippi
Ellen Knutson – Research Associate; Kettering Foundation
Ileana Marin – Program Officer; Kettering Foundation
Bryant Marks – Founder; National Training Institute on Race & Equity at Morehouse University
Hailey Maria Salazar – Adjunct Faculty, Native Pathways Program; Evergreen State College  

When Beliefs Cannot be Mandated: Facilitating Dialogue in Family Therapy
All Levels
In this session, we will describe the use of dialogue (from Essential Partners, formerly Public Conversations Project) to train family therapy students on how to engage in conversations across differences and polarization. For us, dialogue is an innovative way to train therapists who must work with clients and families from all different backgrounds and experiences. We discuss how dialogue is systemic in nature and hold the notion that people cannot be told or mandated to value diversity. Rather, we hope to provide students training to become therapists the opportunity to learn how to cherish diversity, by embracing uncertainty and curiosity about their beliefs and others. Through reflective structured dialogue, students experience how beliefs are shaped by one’s social world and how they would have evolved to hold different beliefs had they been born into a different social world. To exemplify our ideas, we share a case example in which a fishbowl-style of dialogue is used to train therapists, and will engage workshop participants in practicing a curious posture and crafting their own questions from a place of curiosity.

Lana Kim – Program Director; Lewis and Clark College
Martha Laughlin – Program Director; Valdosta State University
Hoa Nguyen – Associate Professor; Valdosta State University
Kate Warner – Associate Dean; Valdosta State University

Who We Are, What We Have Done, Let’s Talk
Beginner
Our focus is to sustain with others an engaged public to improve the quality of life of residents in Bolivar County and the MS Delta. In 2016 we used primarily national issues to publicly involve residents throughout the Mississippi Delta. We formed in April 2021 the Bolivar County Group (BCG). Our initial objectives were to practice having “good conversations”, and how to incorporate attentive listening and weighing different perspectives into our discussions. With the broader public in mind, we later identified and prioritized community violence, education, and economic and health disparities as daunting community problems worthy of exploring with others in pursuit of meaningful change. Join us in this conversation on how you expanded your public to include diversity – age, gender, ideology, and race; what have you done to ensure continued member involvement; how have you used the abilities assembled within your group and the community; and how have you built your networks to align with strategic partners? At the end of our conversation, we should better understand how to welcome and engage those who are not predisposed to participate in addressing community concerns.

James (Ike) Adams – Co-convenor; Bolivar County Group (BCG) – MS Delta
DeGail Hadley PhD. – Owner and Physician; DeGail J. Hadley Wellness Medical Clinic
Felicia Penilton – Manager and Owner; Dr. DeGail J. Hadley Wellness Medical Clinic

Youth and Opportunity: How Best to Engage Young Adults in Future-Focused Deliberation
Intermediate
Colleges and universities are to be open forums for expressing ideas. But current controversies over speakers, protest tactics, and so-called cancel culture raise questions about the freedom and quality of discourse on campus and highlight tensions between inclusion and free speech. Post-pandemic, society at large and students especially say they are weary of Zoom and other forms of digital mediation, yet people’s ability to engage in-person seems compromised after most of civic life went online in spring 2020. On campus, poor class attendance serves as evidence that, while people say they want face-to-face interaction, they are anxious about it. Alternatively, young adults might be more comfortable online, and it is conveners and facilitators who must adjust to the digital realm. 

This workshop directly addresses the conference theme in the context of young adults and their weighing of solutions for public problems. Our workshop is built on research and practice from a student-deliberation study sponsored by the Kettering Foundation and conducted on three university campuses. We consider the strengths and weaknesses of face-to-face and online forums for cross-cutting conversations and how practitioners can promote authentic deliberation with young adults. 

Saya Kakim, PhD. – Program Officer; Kettering Foundation
Windy Lawrence – Director;  University of Houston Downtown Center for Public Deliberation
Colene Lind – Director of Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy; Kansas State University
Ekaterina (Katya) Lukianova – Program Officer; Kettering Foundation
Keyhan Shams – Doctoral Candidate in Leadership Communication Staley School of Leadership; Kansas State University