Community Dialogues
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 with dialogue where participants will:
- Deepen insight into multiple perspectives and stimulate complex, nuanced thinking on the tensions within critical issues
- Prepare students to navigate a diverse world with a curious perspective-seeking frame
- Practice and cultivate dialogic skills
- Guide exploration of personal ethics, morals, and values
- Build and contextualize awareness of self in relationship to others in their community
- Foster connection between participants by relating to each other with genuine curiosity, interest, and imagination
- Inspire socio-political action, both individual and collective
Community Dialogues is an initiative offered in partnership by Community Engagement & Leadership, University Housing & Dining Services - Diversity Initiatives & Programs, and the Office of Institutional Diversity.
Register For Upcoming Dialogues!
Community Dialogues have used a Story Circle format for a majority of our dialogues.
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.
Upcoming Dialogues
Fall Community Dialogue Offerings
Building Belonging: A Practical Conversation on Developing Community
Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, 5 - 7pm
Doors Close at 5:30pm
Location: MU 109
Elections & Emotions
Part 1: Before Election Day
Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, 5 - 6:30pm
Location: MU 104
Part 2: Post Election Day
Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, 5 - 6:30pm
Location: MU 208
Winter Community Dialogue Offerings
TBA
Spring Community Dialogue Offerings
TBA
Have ideas for topics? Know faculty/staff you would love to hear from at the start of a dialogue? Send your suggestions to cel@oregonstate.edu.
- Spring 2024, April 11th: Exploring Masculinities
- Winter 2024, February 22nd: Power of Color - Conversation on Colorism & Anti-Blackness
- Fall 2023, November 13th: Harvesting Truth - Diverse Perspectives on Thanksgiving
- Fall 2023, October 20: A Peace of My Mind Keynote & Dialogue - Exploring Belonging
- Spring 2023, May 4: Student Wellness & Belonging
- Spring 2023, April 27: Imagining Intersectional Sex Education
- Spring 2023, April 20: Exploring Masculinity
- Winter 2023, February 9: Power of Color - Conversation on Colorism & Anti-Blackness
- Fall 2022, October 27: Spread of Misinformation on Social Media
- Spring 2021, May 5: What is the link between climate and racial justice?
- Spring 2021, April 21: The earth is dying, what do we do!?!
- Winter 2021, February 25: Stigma around asking for help - why is it hard to ask for support?
- Winter 2021, February 11: Motivation - how do we stay motivated?
- Winter 2021, January 28: Community Care - what would social services look like?
- Fall 2020, November 18: How does real change come from protests?
- Fall 2020, October 21: What's the point in voting?
- Spring 2020, April 30: Mental Health in the United States - How do we address a growing problem?
- Winter 2020, February 6: A House Divided - What would we have to give up to get the political system we want?
- Fall 2019, November 14: Gun Violence - How can we stop mass shootings in our communities?
- Spring 2019, April 25: Land Use Conflict - When city and country clash
- Winter 2019, February 6: Coming to the United States of America - Who should we welcome, what should we do?
- Fall 2018, October 18: Land of Plenty - How should we ensure that people have the food they need?
- Spring 2018, April 30: Safety and Justice - How should communities reduce violence?
- Winter 2018, February 15: Climate Choices - How should we meet the challenges of a warming planet?
To learn more about the Community Dialogues initiative or request accommodations, please contact [email protected] or 541-737-3041.
Reqeusting a Dialogue
What Are Dialogues by Request?
Dialogues are one of the many immersive events CEL offers in order to actively engage with one another in order to become more self-aware, empathic, relational, and discerning leaders in the communities we find ourselves in and outside of OSU. Dialogues By Request is an extension of our Community Dialogues events and is offered by request to student organizations & clubs, fraternity and sorority chapters, departments, classes, staff teams, and other groups within the OSU community.
We offer a variety of dialogic formats and encourage a consultation with one of our staff members in order to identify the best format and fit for the conversation you wish to have. This can be done before or after submitting a request form. Please make sure you have read the website information in its entirety before proceeding to request a dialogue.
Dialogue Disclaimer
While dialogues are a space meant to facilitate discussion rooted in lived experiences and across difference, they will NOT be a space for argument or debate. Many of the stories and experiences shared during these sessions are from a personal perspective and are reflective of individual experience. Please hold respect for yourself and others within the space by practicing active listening and allowing students their full amount of time to share.
Dialogues are a space that welcomes and encourages vulnerability. However, it cannot be a replacement for psychological services. If you or someone you know are in crisis or you would like to speak to a professional, please visit the CAPS webpage for more information.
If you are interested in having CEL host a dialogue with your students or group, please fill out the form below. For preparation and planning purposes, please submit your request at least two (2) weeks in advance.
Using Story Circles
Thank you for your interest to utilize storytelling in your community. Story Circles is a storytelling process that can be used for a stand alone event, as an icebreaker, or main activity for generating connectivity and dialogue between people.
A Story Circle is a small group of individuals sitting in a circle, sharing stories - usually from their own experience or imagination - focusing on a common theme. As each person in turn shares a story, a richer and more complex story emerges. By the end, people see both real differences and things their stories have in common. A Story Circle is a journey into its theme, with multiple dimensions, twists, and turns.
Story Circles are something general and specific and storytelling is something that people have done time immemorial. Story Circles are often understood as deriving from Indigenous traditions. There are many variations. Theatermakers such as Roadside Theater and John O’Neal have been central in developing the practice for use in creating original performance and community telling and listening projects. Story Circles can become practical interventions for building shared power and moving to action after hearing themes from the stories and building relationships between individuals.
Each Story Circle is unique and can take on the energy of the group. They can support perspective taking, empathy, cultural humility, listening, courage, vulnerability and healing. Story Circles can be light or deep - depending upon the hopes, intentions, and outcomes of your group. Story circles allow for civic dialogue. Opinion is so polarized, story circles help us find a way that to can sit alongside each other and develop empathy.
We started using Story Circles as a part of the People’s State of the Union Campaign, US Department of Arts & Culture.
Roadside Theater: Telling stories through the power of theater, music, media, education, and other arts
Some quotes that can be used:
“Stories are powerful and deeply part of who we are. When we center our stories, we open spaces for building trust, community, and shifting culture. As a leader, I have learned that creating and investing in relationships are integral to transforming the world we live in. Story Circles are profoundly important to the process.” ~Micknai Arefaine
"Story Circles taught me nearly everything I know about leadership. They showed me that true leadership is not about how many projects your complete or how many people your reach, but more so about the quality of connection/understanding you have amongst your peers, and how that connection is the essential foundation of doing meaningful work." ~Hunter Briggs
The Story Circles tool was brought to OSU through our participation in the People’s State of the Union, Dare to Imagine, and Imaginings campaigns (2015-2018) by Charlene Martinez who served in the role of Integrated Learning for Social Change, a program within Diversity & Cultural Engagement and as an USDAC Cultural Agent.
