The Power of Dialogue: Changing Campus Culture

Posted on December 7th, 2018

This webinar explores how dialogue is able to bring about change in how we understand and interact with each other and why this is so important in addressing complex issues on campuses today. Designed to support the Changing the Culture of Substance Use project, this webinar will nonetheless be of interest to anyone attentive to promoting healthy campus cultures. The first webinar in a three-part series: Webinar 2 will look at planning and facilitating dialogue; Webinar 3 will look at the challenges and fears around dialogue. Presented by the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR).

Why is dialogue so relevant to campuses?

Dialogue offers the potential to

break down silos on campus and create opportunities for diverse stakeholders to come together including staff, administrators, faculty, and students
facilitate student (and other stakeholder) participation in institutional decisions related to health and well-being
deepen the conversation around a wide variety of complex topics such as mental health, substance use, sexual violence, etc.
reduce echo-chamber thinking by exposing people to diverse perspectives
enhance our ability to communicate with senior administrators and leaders on campus around issues related to health
humanize topics that are rife with assumptions and stereotypes
be a health ‘education’ tool
make it easier to identify barriers to action or implementation

Learning objectives

After the webinar, you will:

better understand the principles and purpose of dialogue to build community capacity around complex health and social issues, such as mental health, alcohol and other substance use, sexual violence and smoking
learn the benefits of nurturing dialogue within an organization, campus or other community setting
learn how to ask good questions about complex topics that spark deeper conversation

The slides are included above along with links to some of the imbedded resources on the last slide. The webinar will be offered again January 2019. A video recording will be added to this page at that time.