Civic Dialogue

Engaging in thoughtful dialogue and listening is a key element of productive community engagement. Dialogue-focused community engagement recognizes the inherent interdependence of community life and the inequalities that shape that interdependence. Our various community engagement programs, like Service-Leadership Work Study, are carefully tailored to build dialogue and listening opportunities, so that students get to work with and learn from community members with very different perspectives, experiences, and social positions.

We also host the Listening Project, which facilitates regular dialogue events in the community. These events provide students and community members an opportunity to come together in an intentional way to listen, learn, and challenge their assumptions. For the spring semester, the Listening Project will be running a series of dialogue workshops on political polarization. Additionally, we will be running dialogue skills workshops for students. Information about our upcoming civic dialogue workshops and events may be found on the Grinnell College calendar.

The Listening Project is always looking for student facilitators, who work with community facilitators in running dialogue events. To learn more or to be trained as a dialogue facilitator please contact Ryan Solomon or make an appointment him via  Calendly.