Having hard conversations, a discussion seminar

Wake Forest faculty and staff are invited to participate in a seminar-style, lunch-hour reading group that explores how to create and sustain community even when deep divisions threaten to overwhelm best intentions. 

The group will focus on identifying key characteristics of conflict, including the conditions in which it thrives, the traps it creates, and the approaches that can transform it into generative conversations. 

At the seminar’s conclusion, participants will have a better understanding of how they respond to conflict and how they might help channel charged encounters into productive dialogue and exchange. 

Participants will also have an opportunity to complete the Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory. The final session will focus on the inventory and provide some strategies for using what we have learned.

Amanda Ripley’s High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out (2021) will help frame the group’s conversations. 

There are 15 spots available on a first-come basis. Registration is open until Sept 22. Participants will receive a free copy of Ripley’s book.

The group will meet from noon to 1 p.m. on the following dates. Location TBD. 

• September 29
• October 20
• November 3
• December 1 and
• December 8  (lunch provided)

Register here to join this conversation series focused on understanding how conflict traps us and how we can move through challenges into communities rich with difference, welcome and justice for all. Registrants should plan to attend all meetings.

Those who complete the seminar will also be invited to join a workshop (to be held in Spring 2023) dedicated to skill-building around best practices for confronting and redirecting destructive practices (as opposed to disruptive ones, which can be useful and are often necessary).

This seminar series, “Having Hard Conversations: A Seminar on Dialogue, Conflict, and Being in Community,” is offered by the Office of the Provost and the Deans Council.

University Ombuds Jill Crainshaw and Associate Dean in the College for Faculty Recruitment, Diversity, and Inclusion Erica Still will lead the sessions.