This resource is for: the Cornell community (requires NetID to access)
This text was written for our Community at Cornell orientation program for incoming students. Although written with this specific audience in mind, we believe the content here is relevant for many audiences.
This resource is for: Cornell Residential Life Staff (requires NetID to access)
While we at the Intergroup Dialogue Project don’t work in residential life, the worries about opening up challenging conversations are familiar. Because of this shared concern about challenging conversations, IDP has developed a list of guided reflection questions in consultation with West Campus House System leaders. We hope this resource will help you feel more equipped for challenging conversations with residents. Although this resource was created with this focus, we believe other student-facing staff, such as academic advisors, might also find it helpful.
This resource is for: Educators
Community agreements are ‘ground rules’ that we establish early on to set expectations for how we want to communicate with each other. These agreements help set both practical norms and broader intentions of how we want to approach the conversation.
Strategies for implementing Community Agreements…
This resource is for: Educators
This resource is an accompaniment to our podcast, “I” Statements, where people with different identities come together to share their own beliefs, experiences, and perspectives, demonstrating both the power and the possibility inherent in communicating across difference. This resource is for people who would like to incorporate the podcast into their work with students and/or colleagues.
This resource is for: those who work with peer leaders in the Cornell community (requires NetID to access)
This resource emphasizes the significance of peer leadership programs in supporting meaningful connections and fostering academic and personal development among undergraduate students and provides best practices for effective peer leadership. By engaging in roles such as mentoring, advising, tutoring, and teaching, peer leaders play a crucial part in promoting student engagement and success, especially in addressing challenges like division and disengagement.
This resource is for: the Cornell community (requires NetID to access)
This resource was prepared in advance of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Although it refers specifically to this election, we believe the content here is applicable to many conversations people may wish to engage in surrounding politics.
This resource is for: the Cornell community (requires NetID to access)
Strategic questioning is a communication tool that allows us to move back and forth between creating shared understanding of an issue and collaboratively exploring solutions. It starts with questions that focus on how reality is now and builds to include questions that focus on what reality could be. In this way, strategic questioning draws us forward to well-informed potential realities of the future. It synthesizes new information from what is already known and often brings to light the values, assumptions, and emotions underlying an issue.
This resource is for: the Cornell community (requires NetID to access)
LARA stands for Listen, Affirm, Respond, and Add Information. The overarching aim of this tool is to encourage communication across difference (whether of identities, perspectives, or experiences). As a communication tool, LARA can be useful in building connection and trust with others, creating space for the exploration of multiple – even conflicting – perspectives, and bringing emotions, assumptions, and social identities into the conversation. The aim of LARA is to help steer a conversation towards mutual understanding of each other’s identities, lived experiences, and positions.
