CommonGround FAQs

Workshops are offered exclusively to student communities—organizations, Greek life, academic courses and cohorts, cooperatives, and more.

Students can request directly, and advisors, instructors, or staff may request on their behalf.

A CommonGround workshop may be right for you if you are a student or student organization and:

• You want to create a group or environment that is more inclusive.
• You want to create an interactive space to engage in dialogue about social justice and social identity.
• You have noticed difficulty navigating conversations within your group due to social identities such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.

Though our workshops often enhance these skills, CommonGround does not directly cover workshops on leadership, team building or conflict resolution. If your organization is seeking mediation, the Office of Student Conflict Resolution or the Center for Campus Involvement can serve as resources.

CommonGround doesn't offer "train-the-trainer" or facilitator training workshops, but we would love to lead a workshop for your student leaders, advisors, and/or educators. 

We facilitate workshops exclusively for U-M students. If you are interested in working with IGR for a session/workshop/training for non-students, please reach out to [email protected].

Complete and submit our workshop request form. We'll receive a notification, review your submission, and follow up with you. 

Please note that our facilitators and coordinators are students, so our timelines and scheduling follow the academic calendar—thanks for your patience as we navigate busy seasons!

We use the following workshop request process so that your experience as requesters meets your expectations and addresses the growing needs of our campus. 

• Once you submit a workshop request, we'll receive a system notification and begin processing your request. 
• You should be notified by someone from IGR that we’ve received your request within a week of submission. If you haven’t heard from us within a week, please feel free to message us at [email protected] or [email protected]. 
• Once we’ve processed your request, you will receive a message from our logistics coordinator to place a hold on the best available date. (Note: we cannot officially accept a workshop until we’ve received confirmation that we have facilitators that are available). 
• You will hear from us to set up an intake meeting approximately 3 weeks before your workshop date. They will then navigate the process with you, which includes confirming your group's learning goals, desired topics, and other needs.
• After the intake meeting, workshop facilitators will be assigned and we'll start creating the custom curriculum for your workshop session.
• Finally, the facilitators will lead the workshop and facilitate the activities decided upon. After the workshop, CommonGround will follow up with the requester and send them the workshop evaluations collected.

• Requests accepted by semester: We can only accept workshop requests for the current semester. We will accept workshop requests for the Fall (Oct - Dec) starting on August 1st, for the Winter (Jan - Apr) starting on December 1st, and for the Spring/Summer (May - Aug) starting on April 1st. We can accept workshop requests until we reach capacity for the semester.
• Waitlist: Once we have reached our capacity for workshops for the semester, we will add requesting groups to our waitlist. If a space opens up (e.g. another workshop gets cancelled), we will reach out to groups on the waitlist to schedule a workshop.

No two CommonGround workshops look exactly alike! Here at CommonGround, we want to be sure we are meeting your group’s individual needs and goals. During our intake meeting, we will assess what the group most wants to accomplish, and then we will decide on specific activities accordingly. While there is no “script” for a workshop, CommonGround activities address themes of communicating across difference, social identities (race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc), how power and privilege function within a group dynamic, and how to effectively navigate social identity tensions. 

CommonGround workshops are designed to cover a variety of social identity topics and can be tailored to fit the needs of your community. These topics generally fall under the following categories and if you have thoughts on combining topics or including others not listed, you will have an opportunity to discuss these possibilities with us during your intake meeting. 

• Entering Communities: Participants are engaged in activities designed to encourage thinking around norms and expectations in their own communities and those that exist in others. Dialogues in this category generally focus on how our presence may impact different communities and are oriented towards group that do 'helping' or service oriented work.
• Social Identity 101: Designed to be an introduction to social identity and its influence up on us, participants are introduced to social identity categories and begin exploration into the social identities that they hold.
• Communicating Across Identities: Slightly more advanced than Social Identity 101, this module is focused on acknowledging the role of social identity within group dynamics. Participants engage in thinking and skill building around bringing identity into conversations and addressing conflicts related to social identity.
• Allyhood: With the understanding that some identities are socially prioritized over others, consciously or not, this module seeks to engage participants in thinking about and practicing on how to operate in solidarity with those identities that do not receive preference
• Power and Oppression in Groups: Deepening consideration of social identity and its influences, participants spend time not only understanding how to mitigate and resolve situations that may be damaging, but also how group dynamics may create preference for some identities over others as well as engaging in thinking on how to reduce these effects.
• Inequality and the American Dream: This activity is specially designed to understand how various social identities are affected on a societal level in our country and challenge ideas of absolute social equality and ability to attain success in our current societal structure.
• Social Justice Journey: This activity is specially designed to understand how various social identities are affected on a societal level in our country and challenge ideas of absolute social equality and ability to attain success in our current societal structure.

Workshops are typically 1.5 to 3 hours long. While we are able to be somewhat flexible with time, please note that in order to be most effective, our workshops and activities require at least an hour and a half.  

In order to create a more effective learning environment and use engaging activities (small and large group discussions, interactive exercises, simulations, etc.), our workshops work best with 8-80 participants. Please reach out to us ([email protected]) if you would like to request a workshop for a group outside of this size range, and we can discuss if this is feasible. 

• For larger workshops: We have more facilitators at larger workshops and often need a second/breakout room to split the participants into smaller groups.
• For smaller workshops: If there are very few participants at a workshop (fewer than 8), the facilitators will decide if it is still possible to lead the workshop.