“Essential Partners saved me today”: A Letter from the Field

Essential Partners saved me today. 

As we were finishing a meeting today, colleagues and I learned about the Charlie Kirk shooting, which took place at a campus about 45 minutes south of us. We were shocked. I walked from that meeting to teach my class, “Tackling Taboo Topics: Dialoguing Through Conflict,” and students rushed into class talking about the event.

We had planned on having students hold Dialogue Booths on campus so they could get practice talking to strangers through light-hearted questions like, "When do you most feel alive?" We all agreed that today was not the day for light-hearted questions when we all felt so heavy, and we wanted to process what was happening.

I asked them for five minutes and pulled up EP's questions for a dialogue on guns and gun violence. 

With a little tweaking to include questions about political violence, my students and I held our first structured dialogue. They were hungry for it. They loved it. They walked away saying that they had heard things that challenged their assumptions and that complicated their thinking.

Thank you. I know I could have pulled something together, but it would have taken me more than ten minutes. With your resources, it took me five. It was an important conversation to have.

Warm wishes,

Natasha Seegert
Associate Professor, Lecturer
Director of Conflict Resolution
Department of Communication
University of Utah