Two teams of Social Work faculty and staff have been awarded funding from the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center to participate in UConn’s Initiative on Campus Dialogues (ICD) Fellowship Program. The 2019-2020 year focuses on creating dialogue in the classroom. Five fellowships were awarded this year and the School of Social Work received two!

Milagros Marrero-Johnson and Ann Marie Garran will be creating a webinar on “Managing Microaggressions in the Classroom Using Dialogue”! , piloting with some faculty and conducting research in this area.

Lisa Werkmeister Rozas, Margaret Lloyd, Rupal Parekh and Kim Campbell (and Just Community) will be launching a project “Student Led Circles of Justice” which will work with eight student leaders to address issues related to environmental justice and to engage faculty, staff and students to develop awareness and skills in the pedagogical benefits of dialogue.

The ICD Fellowship Program is a University-wide partnership, with participation from academic, service, outreach and administrative units. Fellowship teams engage in a year-long, shared-learning process, develop projects that apply dialogue and deliberation to specific content areas and curricular settings, and make use of, and potentially contribute to, current research-in-practice.

“I am so pleased to have two teams from the SSW awarded this university wide fellowship. Both projects highlight our strengths as a profession and a school”, noted Dean Heller.