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IGD Alumni Comments
Intergroup Dialogue Program
The Intergroup Dialogue Program (IDP) at Occidental provides students with several unique opportunities to engage diverse democracy—personally, critically, and constructively.
As a curricular initiative IDP seeks to enhance students’ knowledge, understanding, and awareness about diversity and social justice while nurturing the development of constructive intergroup relations and leadership skills. In short, IDP seeks to provide diverse students with educational experiences that prepare them to participate in and foster an inclusive society. Course work is designed to include an interdisciplinary blend of readings, respectful dialogue, experiential learning activities, and reflective writing. Courses focus on single as well as multiple social identities, are peer and/or faculty facilitated, and include practicum supervision and research opportunities.
Our newest initiative, Desirably Difficult Dialogues (DDD), is designed to help students learn about identity based social inequalities and social justice outside of the classroom. It offers members of the broader Oxy community an additional venue through which to engage important social divides concerning race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and class in an increasingly diverse world. We hope that student organizations, campus leaders, faculty, and other campus communities will consider ways through which DDD can help increase their constituents’ awareness and knowledge about identity and socially-just intergroup relations. DDD workshops are designed to work within ninety minute through three hour time-frames.