The Day of Dialogue, an event intended to promote conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion, took place throughout St. Joe’s campus on Feb. 20.
The program was held in response to racist incidents that occured on campus last semester, which led to a campus-wide University Forum on racism, according to organizers.
The day included 19 different sessions spanning from 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. and was attended by over 1,100 students, faculty, staff and administrators. The Day of Dialogue had over 30 facilitators from various departments, practices and outside organizations with the goal of equipping St. Joe’s community members with education and resources to promote an inclusive environment.
Janée Burkhalter, Ph.D., an organizer of the Day of Dialogue and associate professor of marketing, co-facilitated a session on inclusive pedagogy. Burkhalter said the goal of the program was to facilitate conversations to ensure that everybody is learning and continuing to learn.
“Students, faculty, staff [and] administrators have all been asking for tools, been asking for the chance to talk more and learn more,” Burkhalter said. “We wanted to make sure this was all about dialogue, to be able to have that exchange, to provide people that opportunity [and] give them the information.”
The Welcome Session was held in the Chapel of St. Joseph followed by a Video + Reflection Session and two sections of Concurrent Sessions comprised of many hour long workshops including Safe Zone Training, Autism in the Classroom and Deconstructing White Privilege. The day ended with a Plenary Session from Nicole Stokes, Ph.D., the new associate provost for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Jordan Sweeney ’21 attended the Leaning Into New Experiences and Situations (L.I.N.E.S.) Session, which featured a series of monologues inspired by real students dealing with issues surrounding their identities.
Sweeney said events like the Day of Dialogue will bring about motivation for change and make St. Joe’s a more inclusive campus.
“Dialogue is something that is distant on this campus,” Sweeney said. “There are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings among white people that don’t understand the value of the conversation about inclusion. I think these events challenge those perspectives.”
A full recap of the Day of Dialogue will be in the Feb. 26 print issue of The Hawk.