Dialogue Across Difference

UCLA has a vast resource of leaders, experts and scholars who embody the DaD values of intellectual engagement, curiosity, empathy, active listening and critical thinking. The initiative brings these groups together to share best practices and make these valuable opportunities for learning and connection more accessible to our community.

DaD-recommended and affiliated events can be viewed in the Dialogue across Difference section of the UCLA Community Calendar.

Campus partners and DaD affiliates:

• Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center
• Student Affairs
• Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
• Teaching and Learning Center

Student interns are an integral part of the DaD team. The initiative offers an annual opportunity for students with a deep commitment to advancing dialogue on campus to join this team and contribute to our mission. Internship applications open once per year. DaD student ambassadors share about dialogue opportunities and programs with their peers and advance dialogue in their respective activities on campus.

• Priority Deadline for 2025-26 Internships: September 26, 2025
• Final Deadline for 2025-26 Internships: October 10, 2025

To apply:

Please submit your cover letter and resume via this form.

Feel free to send any questions to Maia Ferdman at mferdman@college.ucla.edu.

Dialogue across Difference (DaD) Faculty Fellows Program

In an increasingly diverse and polarized world, engaging others with whom we disagree or who have differing perspectives can be challenging. Instructors play a critical role in establishing an inclusive learning environment and, importantly, equipping students with the tools to engage in complex conversations across differences in lived experience, cultural background and perspective. Indeed, many of our classrooms are sites for such conversations.

Dialogue across Difference (DaD) is collaborating with the UCLA Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) to expand our work in the realm of classroom instruction. The new Fellows program, which the TLC will administer, supports UCLA instructors of record who are incorporating DaD values of intellectual engagement, curiosity, empathy, active listening, and critical thinking into their course materials and teaching practices. The program launched in May with an information session that invited applications. Of the 28 applicants, 16 were invited to join the initial 2024-25 cohort, their proposed offerings represent an impressive diversity of topics across both undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as thoughtful engagement with DaD values.

The inaugural DaD Faculty Fellows Program officially kicks off with a workshop in September.  There will be recurring community of practice meetings during the academic year and a culminating event in June 2025 to showcase the instructional innovations of the faculty cohort, which includes the following members:

• Katrina DeBonis, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
• Julie Elginer, Health Policy and Management
• Rebecca Jean Emigh, Sociology
• Dana Rose Garfin, Community Health Sciences
• Jonathan Heldt, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
• Rachel Ketai, Writing Programs
• Tamara Levitz, Comparative Literature
• Aaron Littman, Law
• Paul Macey, Nursing
• Michele Moe-Forsyte, Writing Programs
• Hirsch Perlman, Art
• Abigail Saguy, Sociology
• Caitlin Solone, Disability Studies
• Brenda Suttonwills, Law
• Natasha Wheaton, Medicine
• Sanford Williams, Law

Funding for these faculty fellowships is provided by the UCLA Teaching and Learning Center, the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Foundation, and the office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost.

Fiat Lux Offerings

In an increasingly diverse and complex world, the ability to engage in meaningful dialogue across differences is an essential skill. To facilitate a UCLA community equipped to engage in meaningful conversations, DaD has partnered with the Fiat Lux program to offer classes that facilitate the exploration, connection and understanding of differences.

The classes are focused on the following goals:

• Fostering an understanding of the importance of dialogue across differences in personal and professional contexts
• Understanding the role of communication in conveying scientific findings to a global audience with varying levels of expertise and knowledge
• Bridging the gap between traditional and modern medical practices, emphasizing the value each brings to the table
• Developing effective communication skills, including active listening, empathetic responses and conflict-resolution techniques
• Exploring the role of cultural competence in facilitating meaningful conversations
• Encouraging self-reflection and awareness of personal biases and assumptions
• Empowering students to become advocates for diversity and inclusivity

The inaugural Dialogue across Difference Fiat Lux classes scheduled for spring 2024:

• Bridget Callaghan (Psychology): Treat Yo’self: Examining Evidence Behind The Modern Self-Care Movement
• Irene Chen (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering): Writing for Wikipedia: communicating science to a global audience
• Lily Chen-Hafteck (Music): Cultivating Cultural Understanding and Intercultural Competency through Music
• Linda Demer (Medicine): The Autism Spectrum and Neurodiversity
• Vinay Lal (History): The Principles, Politics, and Poetics of Engaged Dialogue
• Susanne Lohmann (Political Science): Radical Disagreement
• Paul Macey (Nursing): Forget the Vaccine, Give Me Ivermectin! Dialogue around Disinformation
• David Myers (History) and Carol Bakhos (Near Eastern): Keywords: How to Talk about Terms of Contention
• Vadim Shneyder (Slavic): Language, Identity, and Power in the Post-Communist World
• Sharon Traweek and Nadine Tanio (Gender Studies): Tasting the difference: Terroir, pleasure, and the politics of food and drink
• Lee Ann Wang (Asian American Studies): Living with Violence Through Feminist Genealogies of Unknowing

DaD has partnered with the nationally acclaimed nonprofit Resetting the Table to bring its field-tested methodology for engaging across charged differences to campus. UCLA sent a delegation of eight administrators to its inaugural “Train the Trainer for Higher Education Administrators,” which launched in August 2024. They will learn RTT’s intensive methodology for communicating across charged political differences, and in turn run their signature “Speaking Across Conflict” workshop for different UCLA audiences. The cohort includes:

1. Linda Clowers, Director, Research & Bruin Engagement Office (Office of Equity Diversity and Inclusion)
2. Felicia Graham, Dialogue Across Difference Staff; Graduate Student in School of Education
3. Derisa Grant, Director for Educational Development Programs (Teaching and Learning Center)
4. JC Jimenez, Special Assistant for Faculty JEDI, Clinical Professor of Surgery (David Geffen School of Medicine)
5. Kris Kaupalolo, Associate Director, SOLE (Student Organizations, Leadership & Engagement, Student Affairs)
6. David Myers, Dialogue Across Difference Chair; Distinguished Professor of History
7. Amrit Nagra, Director of Clinical Operations, Arthur Ashe Wellness Center
8. Cory Rosas, Director, Diversity Programs and Initiatives (Alumni Affairs)

DaD is conducting its training efforts on three levels:

Engage

DaD seeks to build the campus’s capacity to have constructive conversations across lines of difference

Facilitate

DaD seeks to train campus leaders to effectively manage conversations in the classroom, workplace, and other spaces where difference is present

Convene

DaD seeks to support campus conveners to develop programs, conversations, and events that advance the goals of dialogue across difference

Keywords: Terms of Contention in Public Debate

This event series was launched to highlight words that are particularly divisive and hold varied meanings for different communities.

The first Keywords event featured a dialogue between Palestinian American legal scholar Prof. Omar Dajani and Jewish-Canadian scholar Prof. Mira Sucharov about the word “Zionism.”

Upcoming Keywords events will be posted on the Dialogue across Difference page of the UCLA Community Calendar.

Activities

• Customized training:
  • Providing capacity-building opportunities for participants in DaD’s programs, including the student fellowship, Fiat Lux course providers and Teaching Fellows
  • Providing ongoing training and capacity-building support to key audiences across campus
• Making bridge-building resources more accessible:
  • Connecting the UCLA campus community with existing campus capacity-building resources related to dialogue and bridge-building
  • Connecting the UCLA campus to external community resources and opportunities related to dialogue and bridge-building

Resources