Dialogue for Change: From Conflict to Action
November 14–15, 2025
What can be done to repair division and promote civil discourse in our fractured society?
Over the next three years, Wesleyan University will lead Renewing Democracy’s Promise, an initiative to strengthen democratic culture at a moment when polarization is testing communities across the nation. Through dialogue, community, and civic engagement, Wesleyan will equip students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners with the skills and practices to engage across difference, build coalitions, and take action together.
This year’s Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns, Dialogue for Change: From Conflict to Action, is one of the inaugural campus events under the new initiative, bringing the Wesleyan community together for learning and action.
Dialogue for Change: From Conflict to Action, a two-day seminar designed to empower participants with the knowledge and skills to address our country’s urgent need for connection and collaboration across all perspectives. This event is about learning and doing. It features interactive sessions, expert panels, and dialogue-based training with civic leaders, scholars, scientists, artists, and organizers committed to creating community across difference. Together, we’ll explore how to find common ground—and build on it—to sustain inclusive communities, strengthen civic capacity, and empower citizens to speak, listen, and lead with courage and care.
Join keynote speakers Eboo Patel, founder and president of Interfaith America; Anna Deavere Smith Hon. ’97, an award-winning actor and innovator of “documentary theater”; and Sheila Heen, a professor and deputy director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, along with extraordinary panelists, to explore how to find common ground and build on it to sustain inclusive communities, strengthen civic capacity, and empower citizens to speak, listen, and lead with courage and care.
For more than 20 years the Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns has provided Wesleyan’s campus community, alumni, parents, and friends with opportunities to explore a kaleidoscopic range of compelling, relevant topics through meaningful engagement with experts in a small seminar environment.
The Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns, endowed by James J. Shasha ’50, P’82, supports lifelong learning and encourages participants to expand their knowledge and perspectives on significant issues.
REGISTRATION
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- FREE for Wesleyan University’s faculty, staff, and students
- $25 for all other guests
Register by November 7 at 5pm ET
CONTACT
Please contact Lisa Sacks (lsacks@wesleyan.edu) with questions.
ACCOMMODATION
The Inn at Middletown
70 Main Street
Middletown, CT 06457
(860) 854-6300
Tell them you are staying for the Shasha Seminar.