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Chancellor Javier Reyes has announced an initial three-year university commitment of $600,000 to fund the newly formed Intergroup Dialogue Initiative (IGDI). A collaboration between the Office of the Chancellor, Office of the Provost, and Student Affairs and Campus Life (SACL), the IGDI seeks to foster dialogue on the university’s campus about important, relevant and controversial issues, encourage difficult conversations across diverse perspectives and establish more meaningful connections in informed and productive ways. 

Housed within the Office of the Provost, the IGDI aims to enhance the ability of faculty, students and staff to lead intergroup discussions and establish UMass Amherst as a prominent figure in intergroup dialogue (IGD) practice and research, both nationally and globally.

Ximena Zúñiga, professor of social justice education in the College of Education and a leading expert in IGD, and Dave Neely, SACL’s director of diversity, education and training, will serve as co-directors of the initiative. The overarching goal of IGD is to foster understanding and bridging of different, and sometimes conflicting, perspectives and cultural and social identities with status differences through dialogic engagement and community building. It aims to skillfully and consciously support the co-creation of practices and visions not readily apparent in contexts that are polarizing, fractured or merely tolerant.

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“This initiative will equip our students, faculty and staff to effectively respond to the growing national polarization regarding domestic and international geopolitical issues, as well as free speech concerns, and their impact on campus life,” Reyes says. “I am thankful to Wilmore Webley, senior vice provost of equity and inclusion; Shelly Perdomo Amed, vice chancellor for student affairs and campus life; Deborah Gould, vice provost for administration and finance; and Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, for their support and guidance in working with Professor Zúñiga and Dr. Neely to develop the structure and budget for the IGDI.”

“By providing the tools necessary to foster the types of dialogues that we need and are looking to have in these times, the IGDI will serve as a cornerstone to the university’s mission of creating a community of dignity and respect,” Abd-El-Khalick says.

“Intergroup dialogue is a humanizing, equity-driven and evidence-based practice that fosters agency and has the potential to bridge differences,” explains Zúñiga, who recently completed a one-year Chancellor Leadership Fellowship with Webley, during which she developed an IGD toolkit and hosted communities of practice. “Dialogic practices, such as IGD, are of vital importance at a time when campuses are still reeling from the socio-emotional effects of increasing political polarization, an epidemic of social isolation and increasingly contentious debates about free speech and civil discourse.”

As immediate next steps, Zúñiga and Neely will recruit a steering committee to provide guidance and assist in the initiative’s launch. They will also recruit and train faculty and staff to serve as IGD Facilitation Fellows who will lead short or sustained dialogue efforts and support their development through engaged communities of practice.

Over the past two decades more than 100 colleges and universities nationwide have adopted some form of IGD program, Webley notes. UMass Amherst has played a unique leadership role in the Northeast region over the past 25 years, serving as a research and graduate student training hub for IGD practitioners at the masters, doctoral and graduate certificate levels, as well as for faculty, staff and student affairs educators at UMass Amherst, the Five Colleges and across the region. The IGDI builds upon this longstanding collaboration between the College of Education’s Social Justice Education Concentration and SACL, and will bring the principles of IGD into classrooms, offices and other spaces across campus where people interact.

After three years, the initiative will be reviewed and assessed for renewal. 

More information about the IGDI, including details about the initiative’s launch and the call for IGD Facilitation Fellows, will be announced on the Provost’s Office website in the coming weeks.