Hard Conversations: A reading group on dialogue, conflict, and being a community

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.

Amanda Ripley’s High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out (2021) will help frame the conversations. Participants will receive a free copy of the book.

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

Registration is on a first-come basis with 15 seats available in each of two groups. A virtual group is offered for those beyond the Reynolda campus or who otherwise need to be online. Registration is open until Friday, Oct. 13.  Meetings start on October 18. Registrants should plan to attend all meetings as best they can.

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

This seminar series, “Hard Conversations: A Reading Group on Dialogue, Conflict, and Being a Community,” is offered by the Office of the Provost.