DR. TERRY NANCE CENTER FOR DIALOGUE

The Dr. Terry Nance Center for Dialogue engages the Villanova community in the practice of dialogue by teaching skills and creating opportunities for meaningful interaction and community building.

Our dialogue is grounded in an exploration of identity and lived experience that informs understanding of self and others and empowers all community members to enact social justice at Villanova and beyond.

OUR GUIDING VALUES

At the Center for Dialogue, we value an inclusive and honest community where members actively engage one another recognizing each person's dignity and working together to make a more socially just world. This is accomplished by:

Recognizing the dignity of all people and their experiences;
Allowing room for growth and change;
Remaining grounded in academic theories of identity, social justice and communication;
Recognizing that each dialogic interaction creates new meaning; and,
Using our collective wisdom to maintain integrity and accountability for our words and actions.

DIALOGIC APPROACH

Dialogue is a strategically facilitated and sustained group process  through which  individuals learn the skills to engage in honest and dignifying conversations as they build relationships and community.

In these conversations, participants explore their identity and lived experience with the goal of increasing their understanding of self, others, systemic (in)equity, (in)justice, and their own agency to enact change.

OUR FACILITATOR TEAM

Trained faculty and staff from throughout the University serve as Dialogue Facilitators.

Selected through an application process and thoroughly trained and evaluated, facilitators will have a deep understanding of identity and power, social justice, and the dialogic process.

These trained facilitators create an open environment, channel students towards working together across difference, monitor the dynamics of the group and move through the various phases of dialogue.

BECOME A FACILITATOR