{"id":195278,"date":"2023-02-13T07:30:03","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T12:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=195278"},"modified":"2023-06-27T12:01:13","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T16:01:13","slug":"dodd-impact-team-seeks-a-more-perfect-union-through-community-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2023\/02\/dodd-impact-team-seeks-a-more-perfect-union-through-community-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodd Impact Team Seeks \u2018A More Perfect Union\u2019 Through Community Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

As fractious election cycles become the norm and political unrest flares across the country, history professor Brendan Kane has noticed something curious: nobody argues about engineering.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the questions that really create division within communities are things that we might think of as cultural or humanistic,\u201d he explains. \u201cNobody\u2019s arguing about how to build a bridge \u2013 we know how to do that stuff. Rather, it\u2019s about meaning and belonging and exclusion \u2013 that stuff that humanists spend their entire professional lives doing.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kane, a professor in the Departments of History and of Literatures, Cultures and Languages, is also the Director of the <\/span>Democracy and Dialogues initiative<\/span><\/a> (DDI) at the Dodd Center for Human Rights. Academically, he says, he has always been fascinated with \u201chow people speak across difference.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To that end, he pioneered the <\/span>Encounters<\/span><\/a> dialogue series in 2017. Part of the Dodd DDI, the program debuted the model of community dialogues on humanities subjects across the state. A recent grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Connecticut Humanities Council enabled Kane to expand this work into a new conversation series, \u201c<\/span>Dialogues for Common Ground: American Identity and Connecticut\u2019s Civic Reconstruction.<\/span><\/a>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Encounters discussion model seeks to move beyond the traditional means by which academics speak directly to the public \u2014 lectures and panels \u2014 and instead speak <\/span>with <\/span><\/i>communities. All Encounters events feature a decentralized setup, with community members seated at tables in small groups. (The model adapted to the pandemic era through use of Zoom breakout rooms.)\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Participants
A “Dialogues for Common Ground” session underway at the Old State House in Hartford. (Courtesy of Saah Agyemang Badu)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Participants\u2019 first task is to talk with each other about the texts and topic at hand, whether it\u2019s Gothic art or wealth inequality in the U.S. After the small group has its bearings, all the room\u2019s participants come together to share their takeaways, before breaking back into small groups several times and concluding with an expert Q & A.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kane says the idea behind the small group discussion approach is to increase participants\u2019 familiarity and confidence with the subject material prior to inviting conversation with an academic expert. It lessens the power differential between academics and other community members, highlighting the fact that each has something to learn from the other. The model has been workshopped through years of Encounters.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Is it sturdy enough to stand up to the nation\u2019s current political polarization? Kane thinks so.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His most recent series, \u201c<\/span>Dialogues for Common Ground<\/span><\/a>,\u201d put this premise to the test. It was funded through the NEH\u2019s \u201c<\/span>A More Perfect Union<\/span><\/a>\u201d initiative, which supports projects that encourage civic engagement and commemorate the 250<\/span>th<\/span> anniversary of the United States\u2019 independence in 2026. Using the Encounters community dialogue model, Kane and his team moved to discussions of the nation\u2019s founding documents \u2014 the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLooking through and having dialogues around these founding documents helps us recognize the evolution of some of the provisions and policies and how they have changed and continue to change,\u201d says Saah Agyemang Badu, a master\u2019s student in public administration who is the graduate assistant for the Dodd DDI. Badu, Dodd Impact’s program manager Nana Amos, and former DDI graduate assistant and program manager Erica MacDonald worked with Kane to create and coordinate the Dialogues for the Common Ground series.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the dialogues\u2019 main objectives was to engage with the actual text of these documents, rather than politicized versions that are frequently deployed in arguments. Even after stripping away the politicization, participants found plenty to discuss.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The project sought to demonstrate that these documents remain critically important for the nation’s future, as they continue to inform all federal lawmaking and influence the way all Americans perceive themselves as part of a political landscape.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“In analyzing these sacred documents, we are reminded of our active rather than passive role in its realization and meaningfulness to society,\u201d Amos says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for Connecticut, these documents have shaped the state\u2019s own laws and will continue to influence responses from the \u201cland of steady habits\u201d to the challenges of 21<\/span>st<\/span> century life. In-depth discussions on these texts also offer UConn experts a chance to forge connections with diverse communities around the state.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe structure and format of Encounters helps have constructive conversation with respect for individual ideas being shared,\u201d Agyemang Badu says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDialogues for Common Ground\u201d represents an extension of the University\u2019s commitment to fostering civic engagement and nurturing what Kane calls \u201creal-world skills of foundational importance\u201d: speaking and listening respectfully, navigating tense conversations, and combatting misinformation by restoring community trust.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt some level, it is absolutely about the text and it\u2019s absolutely about community. It\u2019s absolutely about knowledge and facts and scholarship. But some of it is just simply about \u2014 \u2018OK, this is a tense situation. How do I function in a situation in which somebody\u2019s being aggressive? There\u2019s tension in the room, there\u2019s bullying, there\u2019s misinformation. What do I do?\u2019\u201d Kane says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The 2023 spring slate of Encounters programming will be announced soon. For more information or to learn how to participate in Encounters, visit the <\/span><\/i>Dodd Human Rights Impact website<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

History professor Brendan Kane and other UConn experts hosted statewide discussions on the nation\u2019s founding documents, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Connecticut Humanities Council<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":179955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,1715,2318,2459,2312,2076,2235],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2413],"class_list":["post-195278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-community-impact","category-dodd-impact","category-graduate-students","category-hri","category-research","category-today-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 15:37:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195278"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195828,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195278\/revisions\/195828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/179955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195278"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=195278"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=195278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}