Cultivating Change in the Academy: Practicing the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter within the University of Minnesota

Abstract

The Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter is a set of facilitation techniques focused on engaging diverse perspectives in dialogue, an approach to making change in complex systems and an international community of practitioners. Since 2011, faculty and staff at the University of Minnesota who participate in a three-day training work have been applying the approach to many diverse settings. Inspired by the 2012 University of Minnesota collaboratively authored eBook (http://purl.umn.edu/125273) on how technology is Cultivating Change in the Academy, this eBook features twenty-two stories describing how the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter is impacting significant grassroots shifts in teaching, research and outreach across the University.