Difficult Dialogues Faculty Learning Community

(Project completed 2021) Since its inception at UT in 2006, the Difficult Dialogues (DD) program has worked with over 40 faculty in 8 colleges or schools to develop Difficult Dialogue signature courses, i.e., introductory UGS courses that promote respectful and productive dialogue about difficult and controversial social issues, including race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, religion, human rights, immigration, evolution, climate change and sustainability, and illness and mortality. The program, housed in the Humanities Institute, has also offered occasional workshops for faculty on dialogic pedagogy and course design. This project seeks to offer ongoing support to faculty in the form of a faculty learning community and an enhanced set of pedagogical resources, while at the same time increasing the quality of DD courses and the number of faculty teaching them. The objectives of the Difficult Dialogues Faculty Learning Community(FLC) are to (a) strengthen connections among DD faculty, (b) share techniques and enhance skills in dialogue-based pedagogy, (c) provide a context for discussing problems as they arise, and (d) expand the number of faculty teaching DD courses and using dialogue-based pedagogy in other courses. Beginning with focus groups and a survey of best practices for FLC’s, the project will launch, evaluate, and provide resources for  an interdisciplinary Difficult Dialogues Faculty Learning Community.