Course info

Transforming Community Spaces Through Equitable Collaboration

Summer Peacebuilding Institute

• May 13, 20, 27: 1pm - 4:30pm (EDT) 

• June 3, 10: 1pm - 4:30pm (EDT)

Eastern Mennonite University

Leanne Nurse, M.A. and Frank Dukes, Ph.D.

Throughout the world, we see growing recognition of the ongoing harm of many monuments, memorials, contaminated areas, sites of violence, and other spaces identified with histories of oppression. “Transforming Community Spaces” (TCS) is a course to help institutions and communities determine how to transform these challenging sites in ways that uncover hidden histories, advance social justice, and promote collective healing. This course will introduce participants to the challenges and opportunities of problematic community spaces and to the principles and practices of “equitable collaboration.” Equitable collaboration is engagement that is trauma-informed, inclusive, responsive, truth-seeking, deliberative and adaptive. A particular focus of the course will be nearby Charlottesville, Virginia, including work to transform the sites of the Confederate statues that prompted 2017’s Unite the Right rally and counter-protests, and the deep community engagement that guided the design of the momentous new Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. Participants will also have access to an online Toolkit (transformingcommunityspaces.org) that will help them navigate these challenging conflicts. 

Course Purpose:

To develop the capacity of participants to assess, convene, and facilitate processes of equitable collaboration for institutions and communities addressing problematic community spaces with contested histories and meanings.

Learning goals:

Participants will gain:

1) Understandings of the many dimensions of contentious community spaces, including ways that power and privilege manifest in those spaces.

2) Improved capacity for conducting trauma-informed assessment, process design and facilitation.

3) Improved awareness of one’s own conscious and unconscious biases and thought processes.

4) Ability to incorporate tools to remember and enhance mediator/facilitator self-care.

5) Competency employing six elements of equitable collaboration in community meetings, community dialogues, and community collaborative change (consensus-building) to address complex issues surrounding contested community spaces.