On April 16, the Kirkwood Civic Academy Club hosted a collaborative dialogue in Iowa Hall about building community. In the dialogue, participants discussed topics related to what makes a community, what a thriving community looks like and why it’s important to build community.
Assistant Professor of English Shawnacy Kiker Perez is a co-advisor for the Civics Academy Club and organized this event. “The main purpose of the dialogue was, I think, to gather some people to think about the things that sort of we want out of a community, to think about what we do to really kind of do that work of imagining and envisioning the things that we want to be,” said Kiker Perez.
One of the main reasons Kiker Perez said she wanted to offer this collaborative dialogue is because she believes people often struggle to feel connected to their community.“ Coming together and having different groups who already are doing things in the community along with students and faculty and staff, we could create and build a vision for who we want to be and what we want that to look like,” she said.
When it came to organizing the event, Kiker Perez acknowledged that not everything about it was easy. “It’s always a challenge when you have a lot of different people coming together and trying to get out the information to students and faculty and staff.” Despite that, she said it was ultimately cool to see that all the people who received her invitation were excited to be a part of the conversation.
The dialogue participants were divided into multiple groups and seated at tables. Everyone discussed their answers to the given prompts and then shared the table’s response with everyone in the room.
One of the main references Kiker Perez used to put the dialogue presentation together was a surgeon general’s report on the epidemic of loneliness and how the lack of community was negatively affecting people.
At the end of the dialogue, participants completed an exit form sharing their thoughts about the event. According to Kiker Perez, participants gave positive feedback and many said they wished it was longer, and that shows how much they enjoyed it.
| Collaborative dialogue defined |
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| Collaborative dialogue is a process where individuals engage in conversation to jointly explore ideas, solve problems and build knowledge. It involves active listening, mutual understanding and a shared commitment to constructing meaning. |
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