Intergroup Dialogue

Peer Facilitation

Facilitator Training and Facilitation Groups
 

At Occidental, a handful of well-qualified students are afforded the unique opportunity to co-facilitate a Dialogue course. Peer facilitation within a carefully designed, student-centered learning context sets the stage for unique, authentic engagement of sensitive Dialogue topics about commonality and difference.

Student facilitators are well trained having completed an intensive (six hours/week) semester of interdisciplinary coursework in the areas of psychology, sociology, communications, and education. Traditional content is supplemented with weekly experiential learning labs.

During the co-facilitation semester peer facilitators work closely with faculty who support them as they move through a loosely-structured, four-stage curriculum that focuses on a specific set of social identities: race/ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, race and gender. Peer facilitators extend their learning about intergroup relations in a practicum course that provides a supportive learning space for all.

What is required to serve as a peer facilitator? Prerequisites for peer facilitation include successful completion of Psychology 223, effective listening, inquiry, and perspective-taking skills, heightened awareness of intergroup dynamics, including conflict and a variety of emotions, a clearly demonstrated capacity to respond empathically to others, commitment to social justice, and demonstrated ability to work with diverse others.

 

  • E-mail: dialogue@oxy.edu
  • Lab Phone : (323) 259-1332
  • Fax: (323) 341-4887
  • Director:
    Jaclyn Rodríguez, Ph.D.
    Professor of Psychology
    Office phone: (323) 259-2747
    E-mail: jackir@oxy.edu
  • Assistant Director:
    Kenjus Watson, M.Ed.
    Adjunct Instructor, Psychology
    (323)259-4687
    kwatson@oxy.edu