Dr. Brighid Dwyer specializes in helping people talk to each other.
Not at each other or past each other, but across lines of division ranging from age, race and gender to religion, sexual orientation and political views. Teaching groups how to have productive, constructive conversations is key to her role as an assistant professor in communication and in education and counseling at Villanova University, and as director of the Program on Intergroup Relations in the university’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
The specialized program is uncommon in higher education, and Dwyer enjoys teaching students how to engage in open, respectful dialogue as a tool to building community and helping underrepresented students feel included in educational environments.
“Intergroup dialogue is really a wonderful program that I feel incredibly privileged to be a part of,” she says. “It’s about sharing stories and storytelling and making
meaning. We are so divided on many issues, and this is an intentional model for people to come together and talk and be civil.”
The model involves creation of a power-balanced space, whether a classroom experience or social interaction, where no one in a diverse group feels othered. Each person feels supported because participants have developed a deeper understanding of social identities and inequalities.
“A lot of times, we talk past one another and ignore one another, but we don’t talk to one another,” says Dwyer. “Intergroup dialogue allows people to create a new, shared meaning as an identity-based storytelling process that uses skills such as dialogic listening and listening for understanding rather than argument and debate.”
