The Dialogue Zone is a curricular and co-curricular initiative that builds capacity among students, staff, and faculty to learn and practice facilitated dialogue in order to address difficult issues that arise as we interact together in community. By creating space for multiple perspectives, cultivating listening skills, and promoting critical understanding, we foster a culture of dialogue. The Dialogue Zone reimagines conflict and challenging conversations as opportunities for learning and reflection that contribute to the common good.
Dialogue is an ambiguous term, one for which people have many different meanings. As the Dialogue Zone defines it, dialogue is “a communicative process in which people with different perspectives seek understanding.” However, dialogue does not always go smoothly, nor is it always easy.
The Dialogue Zone offers a variety of programs and services that help students, faculty, and staff to engage in difficult conversations about critical topics facing the UD community and society as a whole. Through these efforts, we strive to promote a culture of understanding in a world that has become increasingly polarized and threatened by conflict.
Our Story
The Dialogue Zone developed over a decade of dialogue-related efforts on the part of many individual staff and faculty members at the University. Today, the Dialogue Zone hosts annually nearly 50 engagements with a combined total of over 1000 participants.
