Through the Democracy and Dialogues Initiative, UConn is working to increase democratic and civic capacity by supporting community dialogues on critical issues, providing moderator and facilitation training for dialogues and deliberations, and partnering with campus colleagues and local institutions to increase meaningful participation by all community members.
This initiative is part of Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs and supported by the Office of Global Affairs, the Office of the Provost, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Humanities Institute, UConn Extension, and the Division of Student Affairs’ Parent's Fund.
A five-person panel, organized by Dr. Fiona Vernal (center), discusses housing discrimination. Participants include Joshua Serrano, Pastor AJ Johnson, Annette Sanderson, and Fernando Betancourt.
The Encounters Series
The Encounters Series is dedicated to fostering unexpected conversations around divisive issues and obscure knowledge. The program dives deeply into subjects that are of interest to the Greater Hartford community through facilitated, small-group dialogues followed by a question-and-answer style conversation with UConn faculty and community partners. Readings are provided beforehand to encourage informed and informal dialogue within conversations that often prove to be polarizing, and thus unproductive. Read more about The Encounters Series through Humanities for All.
The fellowship program is a University-wide partnership with participation from academic, service, outreach, and administrative units. Fellowship teams engage in a year-long shared learning process, develop projects that apply dialogue and deliberation to specific content areas and curricular settings, and make use of, and potentially contribute to, current research in practice.
Students, faculty, and community members may host or suggest a dialogue, or join one of our many trainings to become a facilitator or moderator for one of our upcoming dates. See the events section above for our upcoming training sessions.
To host your own dialogue or request a consultation, fill out the form below to connect with our team.
History professor Brendan Kane and other UConn experts hosted statewide discussions on the nation’s founding documents, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Connecticut Humanities Council
