I had my first day back on campus for the required Humphrey School orientation this week. The Perspectives by CDI program was required pre-work, and the workshops reiterated the principles taught in that program. It was an excellent kickoff and an inspiring day. Also excessively hot, the hottest day all summer with a heat index around 105.

It’s a privilege to attend the Humphrey School, as Dean Botchwey remarked it is a special place. The message was well taken that we are here to learn to approach challenges with empathy.

The morning workshop was facilitated by Tane Danger, who began with setting goals for the workshop:

• A sense of common understanding around dialogue
• Orienting to the academic environment
• Setting rules of engagement that everyone understands for difficult conversations

Key themes for the day were:

• Start with a goal for a conversation - they go better when you take a minute up front to think about what you want to acheive
• Practice an “explorer mindset” or “learning to learn” - even if your goal is persuasion, when you start with evangelizing rather than listening your tactics are simply ineffective
• Listen beyond the words - emotion, physicality, energy
• There is real power in telling your own story - authenticity and communicating why an issue is personally important to you are powerful tactics for changing minds
• Ask questions and then deeper questions - it deepens connection and lets the other person know that you’re listening and you care
• Look for spaces of agreement - finding commonality sets us up on a more solid foundation to discuss our differences
• We will make mistakes and are in this together - afford this grace to yourself and others
• You have everything you need already to succeed at this

The small group session incorporated these lessons to set the stage for particing constructive dialogue in a participatory learning setting:

• Words are about 50% of the communication message. In improv, these are called gifts.
• You can always say yes to listening to an idea, doesn’t mean you need to agree with it.
• When you don’t breathe, you can’t think.
• Asking factual, general questions gives you a moment to breathe and think while keeping the conversation going
• Genuine curiosity helps open doors

The small group portion was also notable for the remarkable person I had the pleasure of sitting next to and talking with. Aashraya Seth is a Fulbright Scholar from India, where he works towards gender justice as a founder of Happy Periods India and inventor of India’s most affordable sanitary pad vending machine.

After lunch, the mid-career MPA orientation session convened. It was a noticably older crowd in the room. When the program leaders solitied feedback on how people felt about the (new this year) inclusion of the mid-career cohort in the all-Humphrey orientation, I liked the comment someone made about how it felt like a good mix of experience and enthusiasm. That was also a nice jump off point for framing the mid-career cohort as uniquely valuable because of our existing experience, and because (in Steve Kelley’s words) everyone in this cohort is a lot closer to a point of in our career where we’re positioned to effect change and make an impact.

We started with an introductory circle, and learned that the circle practice will be used to begin and close all of our class sessions. We were encouraged to see it as an opportunity to practice active listening. Listening and discernment were positioned as keys to teaching leadership, and it was underscored that leadership is no longer taught as a top-down paradigm but rather as an exercise in which everyone on a team has opportunities to lead.

We heard an overview of our cohort’s three courses this semester from each professor teaching the course. Then we took a very warm walk together over the Washington Avenue Bridge to go get our university ID cards, then back, then some bonus walking for me getting a little lost trying to figure out how to exit the West Bank campus and make my way back to where I parked. Just like old times at the U.

In sum, a nearly perfect kickoff. I had a couple of quibbles with how the final module of the Constructive Dialogue taught about a “both/and” approach that I’m not sold on being a wise tactic for confronting right-wing misinformation, but I appreciate the effort to set us all up on a solid foundation for engaging in effective ways with people who we disagree with. The CDI modules provided these convenient summaries at the end of each module that encapsulate their key lessons:

• Summary of Lesson 1: The Divided Mind
• Summary of Lesson 2: Us and Them
• Summary of Lesson 3: Get Curious
• Summary of Lesson 4: Storytelling
• Summary of Lesson 5: Navigating Conflict
• Summary of Lesson 6: Moving Forward Together