Dialogues on racism provoke change

Powerful Conversations on Race, a free monthly series, is helping build community capacity for dialogues on race, one of the most challenging and urgent topics in the U.S.

Evaluations from the pilot in 2017-2018 showed that 91% of participants changed their beliefs around race and 100% changed their behaviors. The pilot led to:

• The Corona Dialogues series in 2020, which unpacked the disparate impacts of COVID-19 and re-imagined a different future using dialogue, science fiction writing workshops, and community brainstorming.
• Dialogues on IDEA , a series exploring inclusion, diversity, equity and access for organizations wanting to go deeper and build a listening culture.
• The relaunch of the original series in summer 2021 on Zoom, with a new track called “Race & …” exploring contemporary issues such as critical race theory.
• Two forthcoming series in 2022 on (1) racial trauma and healing, and  (2) whiteness.  

Key to success is our collaborative, consensus-based model which engages over 30 community-based facilitators in design, implementation, and evaluation. We have shared this unique model with arts, humanities, and community engagement practitioners/scholars at national and international conferences, including:

• 2021 International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement Virtual Gathering
• National Humanities Conference in 2020
• Imagining America (IA) in 2019 and 2020, which promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change. Community Engagement Director LaShawnda Crowe Storm was subsequently invited to serve as a fellow on IA’s Assessing the Practices of Public Scholarship.