Before about 50 American University community members in Constitution Hall, Nkenge Friday, vice president of inclusive excellence, declared “building community” to be the focus of the year for AU. But amid what she admitted is “a very divided campus,” she also acknowledged that task wouldn’t be easy.

For over two hours on October 22, Friday and the Office of Inclusive Excellence (OIE) convened university leaders, faculty, and staff to wrestle with how AU can craft a collective vision that includes everyone.

“All of us in higher education—whether we are practitioners, academics, whatever role you may have—we know how to talk, but we want to make this action-based,” Friday said. “How do we move forward with what we talk about and actually create this community?”

The Visions of Change event kicked off OIE’s yearlong Dialogue Across Differences initiative, a series of events, programs, and learning opportunities that promote and model AU’s key values of respectful inquiry, critical thinking, and active listening.

In small groups facilitated by members of the President’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion, participants representing areas across campus discussed building the skills and relationships necessary to set the foundation for how to engage in civil discourse.

The conversation was framed by a short documentary by Giovanna Roskosz Reis, SOC/MA ’25, who interviewed students about the current campus climate and how to talk to each other about difficult events, including the Israel-Hamas War.

“I don’t think we need to be tiptoeing around the hard conversations,” one student said in the video. “This is the place to learn to engage with other perspectives and learn to empathize and communicate passionately. I think the only way forward in a lot of these global conflicts and just general progress [is] we need to be able to hear each other first. Nothing’s going to change if we can’t hear each other, and this needs to start here.”

The small groups then discussed goals and aspirations for the campus community, roadblocks to achieving those goals, and actions and shared commitments we can all make to each other. Each person had their turn to speak and respond to each other’s contributions.

Participant William Thomas IV, a professorial lecturer and director of the School of Education’s EdD program, said that approach of “gathering and bringing together minds is the first step” to making progress through communal decisions.

“Once you have this and create these ceremonies, then you can create the ritual for dialogue. That’s what we’re trying to get to,” Thomas said. “Rituals are something you do each time—over and over again—as part of the culture. A ceremony is a structured event for everybody. We’re trying to build the muscle of ritual when it comes to dialogue.”

“Intentionally creating spaces such as this one are so needed across campus,” added Patty Medina, associate athletics director of student-athlete development and inclusive excellence.

Last week’s event is only the start. While there were no clear or easy answers by the end, the dialogue was designed so that participants could bring the conversation back to their departments and units for further discussion.

More events—including some involving students—are ahead too. OIE will host a follow-up Dialogue Across Differences event in January, along with the Inclusive Excellence Summit in March.

In addition, Inclusive Excellence student ambassadors will be meeting with student groups and clubs to continue the conversation. Friday said that the work being done across campus is challenging—and central to the future of AU.

“I like to think of us as a choir. The beauty of a choir to me is that everyone has their own specific role, their own voice they’re using,” she said. “We come together to make that melody and we’re all singing the same song.”