World in Conversation 2019-2020 End of Year Report

20 20 END OF YEAR REPORT

From the Director To our Colleagues, Students, Alumni, and Friends, We are finishing this report in the midst of crises that are both international, national, and personal in scale. This sweeping disorientation we all feel implicitly frames every page. At the same time, this report also reflects the creativity and enthusiasm that results when people of different backgrounds and perspectives meaningfully participate in a shared mission. The center operates with many teams formed by people from different cultures and nations with unshared life experiences. Although teamwork and diversity can often look dynamic, they can quickly become the opposite when collaboration is replaced by conformity. So we know every individual has to thrive in order for teamwork to be healthy. And that only happens when we value individual voices, perspectives, and visions—especially when they disagree with one another. This precious tension lies beneath every photo and group project highlighted in these pages.

COVID-19 provided us with a case study of teamwork at its finest. I witnessed the resilience of our students as they showed up for all of their commitments in the midst of deeply distressing challenges and uncertainty. I felt the dedication of our staff as they retooled complex systems at the very moment when the personal and professional became uncomfortably intertwined in their homes. I watched the enthusiasm of our trainers as they delivered lively classes day after virtual day. And I felt the medicine of ongoing relationships that kept us all grounded in the midst of immense disruption. I have been privileged throughout my career to accompany college students on the road to becoming confident, creative problem-solvers. I have also been privileged to be surrounded by dedicated staff who are filled with the kind of vision that ensures their development reaches into uncharted territory and new competencies. But even so, the last two months of this year went beyond what I've ever experienced. I remain humbly and deeply impressed by what we accomplished across the center. What I witnessed gave me faith in the ability of humans to respond, to adjust, and even to redesign a world that is clearly begging us to do just that.

DR. LAURIE MULVEY

We are a student-driven center for public diplomacy dedicated to addressing complicated social challenges through facilitated dialogue.

MISSION To host dialogues that allow people to "think together" across borders VISION To make visible the crucial role of dialogue facilitators in every sphere where people conflict and collaborate

2019 2020

METHOD Dialogue facilitators manage information, communication, and interaction patterns between people in small groups so that they can explicitly and meaningfully "think together" on the basis of their different social positions.

contents 1

LEARNING LAB

2

OPERATIONS AND LOGISTICS

6 7

3

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

8

OUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE

4

REDESIGNED COURSESÂ AND

9

NEW (AND OLD) TERRITORY

10

APPENDIX

5

PRACTICUM EVOLVING GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS

NEW TECH TEAM DAY OF DIALOGUE

1

learning lab A number of years ago we surveyed universities around the country and found that none had dialogue programs and facilitator training classes happening at the scale they were happening at World in Conversation (WinC). Nor did we find a place where students were being entrusted with the high degree of responsibility we give them to both facilitate those dialogues and operate the necessary administrative systems to deliver them. What is clear is that WinC is a unique laboratory for engaged learning, and students from every discipline become practiced in real-world program delivery.

Each week, we deliver multiple sections of three different courses that develop in students the unique mindset and skills needed to facilitate dialogues.

203 students populated our training courses this year

examining society

Foundations of Facilitation Advanced Theory and Practice Intercultural Dialogue: Concepts and Practice (IDCP)

70

hours of dialogue facilitation practice per semester at the Advanced level

Because students can only learn to facilitate by actually doing so, they dedicate many hours to a practicum experience where they facilitate the dialogues for WinC.

2

operations and logistics As the curtain closed on an unprecedented academic year, the crucial work of our spreadsheet-designing, calendar-curating, systeminnovating staff and students moved from back to center stage.

These faces scheduled

17,333 people visited nearly

50 classes

cross-checked

communicated with more than

attendace records daily

stakeholders

250+

200

created

20

custom spreadsheets

and monitored our registration site—hourly—every day of every week.

Operations Team and Dialogue Initiators This team is effectively “running the business.�

Dialogue Initiators (DIs) are a team of staff and students who make dialogues happen.

Their role is multidimensional, requiring both "people skills" and a knack for numbers and systems management.

DIs are the first faces to greet participants and build rapport—whether in-person or virtually.

They also uphold communication with stakeholders. And they are THE troubleshooters.

In addition to collecting and recording attendance entries for thousands of students, they make sure dialogue materials are in place for every facilitator and that post-program evaluations are completed.

Their attention to detail ensures the high level of efficiency and consistency that is needed when hosting more than 17,000 participants.

the complex web of operations and logistics DIALOGUE INITIATORS DIs do everything for dialogues except facilitate: They set-up the space, gather the materials, greet and direct the participants, troubleshoot the technology, support the facilitators, administer attendance, remain on-call, and close out the experience with the post-program evaluation.

OPERATIONS STAFF A small team of managers and coordinators evaluate and strategize daily about dialogue operations and logistics as they oversee and develop new systems for all that is listed here.

AN AGILE WEBSITE Relaunched in the fall of 2019, the new and improved design allows for regular updating by anyone on staff to keep stakeholders and students in step with our latest work.

CALENDARING Aside from personal staff calendars, we manage TWELVE center-wide calendars—e.g., semester calendars, facilitation schedules, observation schedules, operations schedules, and staff schedules.

ATTENDANCE The image to the left is every attendance record we manage for student participants in one semester.

We take this very seriously because of its part in upholding academic integrity.

COVID-19 forced us to migrate this system to a fully virtual one.

A REGISTRATION APPLICATION This complex, custom application was recently relaunched in partnership with the College of the Liberal Arts IT Design team. It is THE tool that is used to schedule the more than 17,000 seats we fill for dialogue each year.

TECHNOLOGY TEAM The center relies on technology in all spaces, from recording dialogues to videoconferencing with remote team members. Our technology team supports the smooth functioning of all the hardware and software that keeps us running.

SCHEDULING Google calendar, custom spreadsheets, and our registration application support the scheduling of staff and students. Aside from scheduling more than 17,000 participants, we also schedule facilitators, dialogue initiators, observers, staff, rooms, courses, and external stakeholders.

CUSTOM SPREADSHEETS The center is supported by meticulously designed and regularly updated spreadsheets that keep track of all of our operations, allowing us to assess the scope and quality of our work and to be able to easily communicate that data to our stakeholders, managers, trainers, and students.

STAKEHOLDER COMMUNICATIONS Interns and staff ensure that the more than 100 administrators, faculty, and staff across the university have the resources they need for their students to participate in our dialogues.

REVAMPING both our physical space and design system

STAFFING DEVELOPMENTS This year, we added three new permanent positions to our staff—an Education Program Associate, Education Program Assistant, and Administrative Support Coordinator. Behind these titles are passionate individuals who have put years of dedication into the center.

As a result, our Assistant Director is finally moving fully into her role after many years spent "in the weeds."

As pictured: Danna Jayne Seballos - Assistant Director Chiluvya Zulu - Education Program Associate Taylor James - Administrative Support Coordinator Jeffery Hamill - Education Program Assistant

3

research and development After eighteen years, we landed on a prototype for dialogue-based problem solving that is designed to allow participants to "think together" across their divides, inequities, and different positions—because that is the very place where creative solutions can occur. As we briefly introduce this method here, it may "look like" other dialogue approaches because we gather people in small groups and get them talking to each other. But we are doing something quite different—and will further illuminate our prototype in 2021.

T h e go a l o f o u r m e t h o d is to build on people's si ngular v i e ws t o f o r m a c o l l e c t i v e vision that is bigger and b r o ade r — a n d s m a r t e r — t han whatever any one person ( o r grou p ) c an s e e a l o n e .

People see and care about things based on their unique positions in society.

In this intersection of unshared concerns, we actually have the ingredients necessary for getting closer to what is true— which is essential for solving problems.

Facilitators see each group as a microcosm of society. As such, participants are invited to describe the world as they see it, making explicit the different social positions that are present in each dialogue. It is important for participants to "take their own position."

It’s essential not to take a single statement at face value...

There is always more to see.

And this is the importance of a facilitator.

- current Advanced facilitator

Facilitators interrupt communication patterns that would otherwise compel participants to conform to a narrow range of perspectives. New ideas are expansive.

n = 7,745 *sample of one-time, mandatory participants in Domestic or International dialogues facilitated by Advanced facilitators

The dialogues offer an interdisciplinary space for divergent perspectives to be shared more freely.

n = 7,745 *sample of one-time, mandatory participants in Domestic or International dialogues facilitated by Advanced facilitators

Our dialogues can strengthen a semester-long process of learning about crosscultural social issues.

n = 8,109 *sample of repeat, mandatory participants in Domestic or Global dialogues facilitated by Foundations facilitators

After participation, 83 percent of mandatory participants advocate for further direct funding.

n = 16,112 *sample of mandatory participants in Domestic or Global dialogues and tailored programs facilitated by Advanced and Foundations facilitators

4

redesigned courses and practicum After thirty-six semesters of teaching about dialogue facilitation, we started this year with three fully redesigned training courses, fresh lesson plans, enhanced learning benchmarks, resources for our students, and a revamped practicum experience to tie all the learning together.

WinC could be key to restructuring democracy.

I want to be a part of it.

- Advanced facilitator

Foundational Theory and Practice in Small Group Facilitation

In the fall of 2019, for the first time in our history, first-semester facilitators were fully incorporated in the center. In the past, this pool of facilitators served primarily as SOC 119 teaching assistants.

But this year, we launched a “new and improved” relationship with the class where SOC 119 students became “WinC participants” who registered for dialogues like all the rest of our participants.

This move allowed us to fully train Foundations facilitators in our methodology (as opposed to supporting them to be semester-long discussion leaders for a single class). This enhanced their educational development and supported the center’s larger mission.

Foundations facilitators begin simply—by learning how facilitated dialogue is different from the conversations they have with friends, family, and classmates.

One thing that differentiates an Advanced Facilitator is

the ability to trust their intuition, being able to tell when someone has more to say and inviting them to say it.

This is essential for conversations that we would otherwise ignore or avoid.

- current Advanced facilitator

Advanced Theory and Practice in Small Group Facilitation “Facilitation is a constant learning process— not something someone can master in a short period of time. Whenever I thought I had it down, I was met with a new situation that I hadn’t confronted before, and I was presented with an opportunity to work through it.”

- current Advanced Facilitator Advanced facilitators come to see that they cannot learn to constructively facilitate a dialogue without studying sociology, nor can they do so without studying communication.

That is what makes their experience truly “applied sociology”—because sociological concepts practically intersect with and shape the communication technologies they deploy.

The combination of mindset and skills that an Advanced student develops is a result of this fusion of disciplines. And it is what makes otherwise impossible conversations possible.

Advanced facilitators learn to recognize cultural narratives and deconstruct them by inviting personal observations, allowing participants to voice what they "see."

114

trained facilitators

the complex web of training CURRICULUM Every facet of our training is meant to develop the mindset and skills needed to become a dialogue facilitator. This is truly a hybrid learning environment that pairs sociological thinking with communication technologies. These disciplines inform and reinforce one another throughout a student’s educational development at the center.

TASK FORCE In this open setting, students voice personal learning challenges, collaboratively refine strategies to address their most difficult dialogue obstacles, and creatively practice communication techniques.

TRAINING TEAM The staff for each of our courses makes “the whole student” their focus, both inside and outside of the classroom. They prioritize individual learning needs, offer open office hours, and schedule one-on-one meetings with students throughout the semester in ways that support their educational and personal development.

POST-PROGRAM EVALUATIONS Dialogue participants complete post-program evaluations (PPEs) after every dialogue. These data provide direct feedback to the students and trainers to help refine lesson plans and practice strategies each week.

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTIONS We have two levels of recruitment and selections for student facilitators. For those new to World in Conversation, they try out by participating in a group activity that allows staff to assess their potential for studying and practicing small group facilitation. For current facilitators who want to continue to more advanced levels, the process is semester-long, one that is built into their coursework where training staff make ongoing and detailed assessments of their ability to become veteran facilitators and, eventually, student leaders on the staff.

SCHEDULING Our scheduling coordinators work tirelessly and diligently to integrate the complex weekly schedules of more than sixty student facilitators with the center’s master dialogue calendar. On average, student facilitators co-lead three ninety-minute dialogues per week.

COORDINATION TEAM Students and staff who work to ensure that the classroom space is set up on a daily basis.

Attendance must be taken, materials must be prepped, and technology must be launched within each class time.

DIALOGUE ASSISTANTS Our Dialogue Assistants (DAs) are facilitators who take on an enhanced role in the training of newer facilitators by acting in a dual role—both as model participants and dialogue observers.

They facilitate debriefs between co-facilitators, and bring their dialogue observations back to the training team in order to keep the classroom material dynamic and relevant to the learners.

PARTICIPANTS Dialogue participants are primarily students from Penn State University Park . Advanced dialogues host one-time participants who join via partner classes and colleges. Foundations dialogues are populated by the nearly 1,600 students from SOC 119 (who each participate five times), who are ready to discuss the social issues they are learning about in class.

CROSS-CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT In all training courses, students engage with people from a wide variety of backgrounds. Our global dialogues are a partnership between university students in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Colombia, SOC 119 students, and our Foundations facilitators. This provides a potent opportunity for cross-cultural competencebuilding, connection, and widening the parameters of all perspectives.

facilitating virtual dialogues since

2011

with

29

countries

5 evolving global partnerships Our global network is broad, ranging from twenty-nine countries throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. This year revealed what's possible when we deepen these partnerships. We've spent nine years meeting allies in this work—people throughout the world who are eager to learn more about and experience the power and potential of facilitated dialogue. And we've spent nine years studying the best ways to prepare and train our facilitators for these exchanges, virtual dialogues with peers speaking different languages, across different time zones, and with extremely different headlines hanging over our understandings of each other.

In short, we've learned that simple facilitator tools and dedicated partnerships are key ingredients to cross-cultural global dialogues that do more than reinforce habitual narratives.

With these dedicated partnerships, we've opened the doorway to the future of public diplomacy.

2019—20 Global Partners

Afghanistan

Iraq

Colombia

It became clear this year that our most committed global partners can team up with our facilitators to co-facilitate across borders. Our longest standing partnership is with our colleagues in Afghanistan. Over the past six years, we have seen five Afghan partners deepen their understanding of facilitation and take on a variety of roles required to support these exchanges. This spring, a small number of university students in Iraq were selected to participate in facilitator training. By the end of the semester, four were ready to try their hand at co-facilitating. And since partnering with individuals in Colombia in 2018, two facilitators have emerged as important presences on "the other side." Plans are already underway to expand this opportunity to even more global partners next year.

Global dialogues are often thought to be the most challenging to facilitate because they are vulnerable to technical difficulties and outside circumstances, different native languages and accents to navigate, as well as the inequity of life experiences between participants.

Despite all of this, global dialogues also demand simplicity and a beginner's mind.

Because everyone brings huge assumptions about the other “side,� global dialogues actually call for simple questions that invite

participants to paint a picture of their individual worlds. By exploring these details that humanize and individualize one another, new facilitators are actually quite able to help challenge the basic notion that one person could ever represent their entire country or culture.

That turns out to be a BIG takeaway in these encounters.

While all levels of trained facilitators are equipped to facilitate global dialogues, we've learned that firstsemester facilitators are perfectly primed for these fundamental exchanges.

First-semester facilitators acquire the basic mindset and skills that allow them to support a meaningful exchange of ideas across borders.

6

new tech team Though they may be the least visible, they have their hands in everything from hardware to software, audio to video, videoconferencing to webmastering, live streaming to podcasting, staff and student training to creating and organizing media assets—as well as the everyday maintenance and troubleshooting of these complicated systems (both at the center and with our global partners).

We would simply stop functioning without them. And now, we built an entire team devoted to this critical facet of the center.

While having a dedicated tech team is new, our use of technology to cross borders is not.

Long before COVID-19, World in Conversation used state of the art videoconferencing technology to connect with our global partners and remote staff.

Because two of our full-time facilitator trainers are also remote employees, we invested in a 360-degree Owl camera, allowing them to see facial expressions and body language like never before.

New to t h i s y e a r ' s D a y o f Dialogue, we connecte d p a r ticip a n t s a t U n i v e r s i ty Park campus with two Penn State c a m pus e s , a s wel l a s U n i v e r s i t y o f Mosul and Knowledge U n i ver s i t y ( b o t h i n I r a q ) .

H a v ing o u r o w n i n - h o u s e , 24/7 technology help d esk p r o ved e s s e n t i a l i n o f f e r ing

6 8 6 virtual dial o g u e s a n d cu r a t i n g a d a t a b a s e of our work with

2 , 8 6 1 recordin g s o n K a l t u r a .

7

day of dialogue On Monday, January 20, 2020, Penn State students, staff, faculty, administrators, and community members took part in our SECOND daylong series of conversations that cut across generations, disciplines, University affiliations, and social positions.

Twenty former WinC alumni made the snowy trek back to campus to assist in facilitating and managing operations for the event.

Participants were asked:

“If we were united as a people, what specific problem do you think we would prioritize to solve?”

668

PARTICIPANTS

76

DIALOGUES

BY PENN STATE AFFILIATION 334 UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS 13 GRADUATE STUDENTS 35 ADMINISTRATORS 57 FACULTY 160 STAFF 22 ADVISING STAFF 9 OTHER 13 COMMUNITY MEMBERS 25 VIRTUAL PARTICIPANTS (10 IRAQ, 6 BEHREND, 9 ALTOONA)

SUPPORTED BY 71 Facilitators 21 Operations Team Members 20 Alumni

% of Day of Dialogue participants responded "Yes" to the question: "We believe we are starting 'conversations that matter.' Did we?"

from circles

COVID-19 to squares

8

our biggest challenge On March 11, 2020, Penn State announced the transition to virtual operations in response to the global outbreak of COVID-19. In less than five days (over spring break), our staff worked to relaunch all of our programming, office operations, and classes remotely. Without interruption.

we were ready.

For nearly ten years, the center has been relying on stateof-the-art, enterprise-grade technology to host dialogues around the world. Our entire staff and students were already required to work with Zoom, Slack, telepresence robots, Polycom, and GSuite.

We were not in unknown territory.

10:48 a.m.—March, 13, 2020—"The Moment" of contemplation about what lay ahead

we were committed.

Our staff cut their spring breaks short and met from all their different locations to prepare. From that point on, staff meetings became a morning ritual—the entire staff convened daily to align and launch their days together.

We upped our game on Slack and responded at all times of the day. We worked across time zones—some staff members joining 8:30 a.m. EDT staff meetings at 5:30 a.m. PDT and some students working 2 p.m. EDT dialogues at 2 a.m. CDT. And not a single global partner changed their programming commitment with us in the midst of this global crisis.

We continued to host

25

 campus dialogues everyday— in addition to all of our classes, staff meetings, and regular operations.

we didn't miss a beat.

There are 168 hours in a single week.

And because of World in Conversation, the Penn State community spent almost every hour of every week, (157 hours, to be exact) thinking together in facilitated dialogue— even during a global pandemic.

we set a standard.

It was time to extend our dynamic videoconferencing methods. We activated a full-scale “video-on” culture, with high expectations for engagement—just like in person. We built norms: muting microphones, sitting upright, and engaging in a way that mirrors an in-person conversation.

It was countercultural for many, but it worked—and in many cases our students were training their other professors.

Students and staff began to spearhead weekly virtual events, such as open mic and book club, sparking creativity amid uncertainty and disappointment.

We heard from countless participants, students, and alumni that they were craving this type of interaction; it was not the norm they were experiencing in other realms of their virtual education and lives.

DURING BOTH THE FALL AND THE SPRING SEMESTER, AT ALL LEVELS OF OUR PROGRAMMING, THESE NUMBERS REMAINED CONSISTENT

n = 12,944 *sample of one-time, repeat, voluntary, and mandatory participants in our Domestic, International, and Global dialogues as well as our Day of Dialogue and other tailored programs facilitated by Advanced and Foundations facilitators

we didn't compromise.

Even with deeply disrupted personal lives, students and staff upheld our standards of learning, operating, and delivering dialogues.

Our students maintained all the commitments of their syllabus. We needed to make zero changes to our grading systems. In light of academic uncertainty for many students, we are glad to have systems that stood up to the challenges that COVID-19 has posed.

And our post-program evaluations held strong.

BEFORE COVID-19

Examining both the impact of our facilitators and the content of the dialogue

n = 4,043 *sample of one-time and repeat, mandatory participants in Domestic or International dialogues facilitated by Advanced facilitators and repeat, mandatory participants in Domestic and Global dialogues facilitated by Foundations facilitators

AFTER COVID-19

The slight change in responses leads us to believe that participants are providing honest feedback.

We are fully virtual and upholding our mission.

n = 3,857 *sample of one-time and repeat, mandatory participants in Domestic or International dialogues facilitated by Advanced facilitators and repeat, mandatory participants in Domestic and Global dialogues facilitated by Foundations facilitators

we even innovated.

Amidst this fully virtual transition, in addition to maintaining all of our programming, we launched: A brand new registration site that participants use to sign up for dialogues Training for several of our global partners to co-facilitate dialogues with our foundations facilitators A more responsive recruitment and selections process

all hands on deck

we did it together.

For each moment of success, there was one of uncertainty—students waiting anxiously in airports, learning of the passing of their loved ones, filling childcare and employment needs for their families, and grieving the loss of in-person closure and celebration for their academic careers.

On the last day of the semester, we gathered to recognize not only our 2020 graduates, but also what each of us had done—large and small—to contribute to our biggest challenge becoming our biggest success. Everyone left their signature. Every single person helped us to thrive.

Spring 2017

Fall 2019

9

new (and old) territory "We humans cannot meaningfully solve our most significant problems separately. And we actually have to solve them within our conflicts, not outside of them."

- Dr. Laurie Mulvey

2002

Eighteen years ago, a handful of our students started reaching out beyond the classroom and talking to other students (and eventually staff) across campus about our most troubling social problems. They facilitated 120 conversations in that first year. We have been a growing presence for dialogue at University Park campus ever since.

Look where we are now:

We close this tumultuous year with a continued commitment to studying, teaching, and building on a methodology that centers the crucial (and uncomfortable) work of "thinking together."

Though we look ahead soberly, we also do so with confidence that what we are doing (and learning how to do) at World in Conversation can serve our evolving world.

n= 16,714

10 appendix The following post-program evaluation responses are from one-time, repeat, voluntary, and mandatory participants in our Domestic, International, and Global dialogues as well as our Day of Dialogue and other tailored programs.

With an n of 16,714, these data are our largest sample size to date.

While this is certainly a diverse sample, thorough comparison and analysis shows throughout both the fall and the spring semester—at all levels of our programming—these numbers remained consistent.

n = 16,714

n = 16,714

n = 16,714

n = 16,714

n = 16,714

n = 16,714

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