Training for Intellectual Empathy, Growth, and Effective Dialogue

Constructive dialogue begins with the ability to listen openly, consider other perspectives, and approach disagreement as an opportunity to learn. Training for Intellectual Empathy, Growth, and Effective Dialogue will create accessible, interactive learning experiences that help participants communicate across differences, exchange feedback constructively, and deliberate thoughtfully about complex issues.

Led by the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Office of Holistic Excellence (opens in a new tab), the project will draw on expertise from Dearborn, Flint, and Ann Arbor. The resulting materials will be designed for students, faculty, and staff across U-M and adaptable for other educational and workplace settings.

Audience

• Depending on the module, audience ranges from all campus members to U-M employees and/or students.

What it offers

The project will combine research-based instruction with activities such as branching scenarios, perspective-taking exercises, reflection, and games. Participants will have opportunities to:

• Practice listening to and understanding perspectives different from their own.
• Develop intellectual empathy without being required to agree or reach consensus.
• Replace all-or-nothing judgments with more nuanced and flexible thinking.
• Strengthen the ability to give, receive, and respond to constructive feedback.
• Apply evidence-based reasoning to social, economic, and political questions.
• Examine how personal experiences, institutions, history, values, and data shape different conclusions.
• Build a growth mindset oriented toward reflection, learning, and improvement.

Training modules

The project will develop three complementary modules:

• Intellectual empathy – Participants will practice approaching others’ perspectives and experiences as authentic and credible while recognizing how their own experiences and social positions influence their views.
• Constructive performance-feedback dialogue – Students, faculty, staff, and supervisors will learn to exchange feedback more clearly, openly, and productively in academic and workplace settings.
• Political and economic dialogue and deliberation – Participants will examine complex policy issues through multiple perspectives, evidence-based reasoning, and data-informed analysis rather than ideological entrenchment.

The modules will be designed for both in-person and asynchronous online use. Faculty may incorporate them into courses, Human Resources units may use them for employee development, and student-orientation programs may use them to prepare learners for college-level engagement.

Impact on the public good

The project will help campus community members become more open to other perspectives, more effective at exchanging feedback, and better prepared to discuss complicated social and policy questions. It aims to strengthen intellectual empathy, growth-oriented thinking, active listening, critical reasoning, and respectful disagreement.

By creating resources that can be used across U-M campuses and beyond, the project will support healthier learning and workplace environments while building practical capacity for democratic dialogue and deliberation. Its emphasis is not on promoting a particular viewpoint, but on helping people think critically and flexibly while engaging constructively with others.