Established in Fall 2018 as a priority of the Office of Civic Engagement, the Dialogue Across Difference Program seeks to build the capacity of students, faculty, and staff to engage in understanding across differences through dialogue and civil discourse.
We facilitate public programming for the campus and greater Sewanee community by bringing in speakers and facilitators. Speakers like Dylan Marron, host of the Conversations with People Who Hate Me podcast, and Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, came to Sewanee and showed how promotes dialogue through his podcast.
Dialogue Across Difference Programs provides training and workshops that strengthens the capacity of students, faculty, and staff to incorporate dialogue into spheres inside and outside the classroom.
From a partnership with Essential Partners and The Jessie Ball Dupont Foundation, the Dialogue Ambassadors program was established in 2019 where students, faculty, and staff work together in a learning community to design and implement dialogue programs across campus.
Through a partnership with the Student Life Office, the Dialogue program facilitates the Interfaith Council with around 35 students, staff, and faculty from the college and the university to promote a diverse religious/ethical spaces, programs, and advocacy across campus.
The Democratic Engagement Initiative has been relaunched under the umbrella of the Dialogue program which promotes students to be engaged citizens in the political process in a nonpartisan approach.
Before Sewanee, Cassie worked on diversity, dialogue, and interfaith engagement in higher education. Cassie served in various roles at Interfaith Youth Core. She launched a national interfaith training program, led strategic planning consultations for campuses focused on religious diversity, directed multiple national conferences exploring interfaith topics in the college curriculum, and traveled the country and world speaking and training on religious diversity and interfaith engagement. Cassie has an MA in American Religious History from the University of Chicago and a BA in Religious Studies from Lawrence University. She has taught at Northwestern University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Chicago. She is a past contributing editor for the Journal of College and Character. Her recent writings include chapters in The Oxford Handbook on Religion and Peacebuilding, Teaching Interreligious Encounters, and Educating About Religious Diversity and Interfaith Engagement: A Handbook for Student Affairs.
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