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Support and training in diversity, social justice and community work for
Dartmouth students and staff. Includes a 3-day off-campus retreat. For more
information or to request an application, please e-mail
Deep.Community@Dartmouth.EDU.
Spring 2008 Schedule
Training Program: 4-6pm Mondays, March 31 – May 19
Weekend Workshop: April 18-20
Support Groups: 4-5pm Tuesdays (issues of social/economic class); 5-6pm
Tuesdays (issues of gender); 4-5pm Thursdays (issues of race).
Applications Due: Saturday, March 29 at 6pm.
Deep Community Training Program
This intensive 8-week training program invites members of the Dartmouth
community to address what it takes to build a diverse, committed, and dynamic
human community. We will look at community-building on a personal,
institutional, and social level and will also address the problems, pitfalls,
and difficulties involved. Community seems to be something we both yearn for
and find elusive. Here we can begin transforming the mystery into a set of
practical tools, decisions, understandings, and shared commitments, which work
when used.
Social oppression, fear, insecurities, isolation, misinformation, and
stereotypes impact all of us, whether we are socialized into the victim role or
hold positions of privilege and power. Drawing on insights from counseling
theory and human liberation movements, Deep Community trains participants in a
method of exchanging effective help with one another as we work to build
relationships and communities characterized by love, peace, and justice.
Through structured sharing and listening, we will open up to our emotional
selves, our connections with others, and the full breadth of our own humanity,
beyond the roles we've been conditioned to play. Come prepared to make a safe
environment for all voices to be heard; come prepared to get close to people
who are different from you; come prepared to examine yourself and be honest
about what's real for you. As we explore the hopes, dreams, and challenges we
face in forging human community, we will work to let change begin with
ourselves.
Some Key Themes Include:
- Dismantling the dynamics of social oppression (racism, sexism, homophobia,
etc.) in us and around us
- Developing leadership and power models that are inclusive and
progressive
- Underlying principles of human growth and liberation
- Authenticity vs. Conformity
- The role of social identities in progressive community: Becoming allies for
each other's struggles
- Identifying and dismantling internalized oppression
- Selfhood vs. multiple social identities
- Difference vs. divisiveness
- Transforming gender from being a socially conditioned tool of
oppression
Deep Community Support Groups
These support groups offer members of the Dartmouth community a space
grounded in honesty, safety, and openness to explore how we are affected by
issues surrounding race, gender, or social and economic class. Built around the
same concepts and tools as the Training Program, these small groups are ideal
for people who want to focus in depth on a particular aspect of social
identity, or for those who cannot commit to the more extensive time demands of
the full training. Each group will meet once a week for an hour, and you can
come as often or as seldom as you wish throughout the term.
Key Issues Addressed:
- What gets in the way for you of completely loving people in your own
racial/ gender/ class group?
- What gets in the way for you of completely loving people in other racial/
gender/ class groups?
- What gets in the way of your being a completely powerful and effective
leader in bringing an end to oppression on the basis of race/ gender/
class?
Participant Reflections
I think of the Deep Community Program as sort of the culminating
experience in my Dartmouth career. It was the one experience that was a
catalyst for personal growth for me. I did the program my sophomore winter and
before that time when I came to Dartmouth I had a lot of close-minded
perceptions of a lot of different people and I sort of stayed to myself and was
really isolated just because I hadn’t had an opportunity when I was growing up
to interact with people from so many different backgrounds and I just wasn’t
used to it. But Deep Community was like a safe space where you could get to
know people on this really really personal level outside of the classroom,
outside of all the activities that you participate in and it was really a
catalyst to start breaking down those perceptions of other people that I
had.
It influences me in the amount of risk that I’m willing to take in terms
of stepping outside of that comfort zone…you get so pigeonholed into your own
social communities and you get so comfortable in the place that you are. I’ve
become so used to being uncomfortable that taking a risk doesn’t even seem like
a risk to me any more because I’m so used to reaching for people even if I
might have an immediate reaction to them or if I might have a perception of
them. I personally attribute a lot of that to the Deep Community
Program.
I think the Deep Community Program is awesome. It addresses the
fundamental sort of disconnection that we have as people. And so a lot of, I
think personally, a lot of the problems in society stem from the fact that I
can’t understand you because there’s all these social barriers that tell me we
can’t connect as people. So what the Deep Community Program does is break down
some of those social barriers and help people sort of see over that and see
people’s humanity underneath that. I think that’s one of the fundamental
building blocks that you need to sort of address any issue. How can you address
poverty or how can you address health care reform if you can’t understand the
people living in these circumstances, if you can’t recognize the people living
in these circumstances as human beings. So the first step is that you have to
be able to see people as people and that’s what the Deep Community Program
does. And does phenomenally.
—Echo Brown ’06
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