Recommendations for Planning a Respectful Dialogue

Created by the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Facilitators Group

To host a successful event, you need clearly defined objectives. Ask the following:

Define your audience.

Is this for faculty, staff, undergraduate, graduate students, alumni, general public? Consider the unique needs of each type of audience when determining objectives and making logistical decisions (e.g., access to technology).

Develop your facilitation skills.

If necessary, locate resources for developing or improving your facilitation skills. If possible, identify and consult with a dialogue mentor. There are excellent resources available online about Intergroup Dialogue.
As a part of this process, evaluate your social identities and biases.

Determine how and when to market the program.

What type of advertising will you do? Email? Social Media? Flyers?
Identify the audience and the session objectives in the advertisement.
Provide ample notice so that people can plan to participate (2 weeks preferred, 1 week in a pinch, could send a save the date notice prior so that people can save the date/time while you figure out session details).

Address how this session is part of the bigger picture.

Is this part of a series? Is this connected to your area's strategic plan/goals?

Establish Community Expectations (aka Community Norms or Agreements).

At the beginning of the session set expectations for how participants should engage with each other. Ex: brave space; confidentiality; own your impact; listen to understand, not to be understood; challenge by choice; lean into discomfort.

Consider whether you will incorporate bite-size learning opportunities prior to or in the session.

For example, you could request that participants view a video or TedTalk, read an article, or listen to a podcast prior to the session. You could also incorporate a video or audio clip in the session itself to stimulate discussion.

Make intentional decisions about logistics and format. Do not do this hastily and refer back to your session objectives to inform your decisions.

Should you protect the identity of participants? You may get honest questions and comments if people know their identity is protected.
If you want your participants to remain anonymous, consider using a Zoom webinar instead of the meeting format.
Do you want it to be recorded? What role does participant anonymity play in making that decision?
How will you oversee or moderate the chat? If you have too large of an audience moderating chat becomes impractical. What if the discussion in chat gets “heated”? If you want the participants to be able to submit questions but not interact via chat use a Q&A feature only.
Do you want participants to be able to speak and be seen? What are the potential risks and benefits of that format? How will you handle situations in which people forget to mute their mic and are creating distractions?
Will comments be responded to in the session? If so, who will facilitate the chat or Q&A? How will you structure this? Two options are to answer questions throughout the session or address them at the end.

Commit to future action.

What is going to happen afterward? What are the expectations? What commitment can be made to ensure that the session will be impactful instead of performative?

Follow up with participants after the event.

Create a thoughtful and brief feedback survey to send to participants soon after the event. Ideally this should be sent out on the day of or day after. Provide specific prompts that can be answered in the participant's own voice.
With the survey send any links, documents, or other resources that were mentioned in the session or may be helpful.