News

Joe Person’s passion for IGR began when he enrolled in a dialogue on sexual orientation during his second-year in the winter of 2004. Before graduating from U-M in 2006 with a BA in English Literature, he completed the IGR training program for dialogue facilitation. Following graduation, Joe joined the IGR team full-time serving as the Program Assistant for over two years and in 2011 he earned his Master’s degree in Public Policy from U-M. He currently works as a Research Associate & Project Evaluator for the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in Chicago.

For this profile, we are featuring two very dedicated and long-time members of the IGR community: Adriana Aldana and Davin Phoenix. These talented individuals have been involved in IGR over the last several years in numerous roles: as Graduate Student Instructors, Researchers, a Program Manager (Adriana), and as dedicated volunteers for IGR events. Both Adriana and Davin just received their Ph.D.s from U-M this summer, and have started the next phase of their lives in Irvine, California.

For the past year, IGR has had the wonderful fortune of hosting Dr. Manal Yazbak-Abu Ahmad, a visiting Fulbright Scholar from Nazareth, Israel.  Dr. Yazbak-Abu Ahmad is an Assistant Professor and Chair of the English Department at The College of Sakhnin for Teacher Education.

by Aaron Traxler-Ballew, IGR Alumnus

Some people say job searching or applying to graduate school is all about selling yourself. And if you're willing to think about yourself and your experience as something to be sold, this approach may work for you. I prefer a different metaphor: the generic novel.

That's right, getting a job or getting into graduate school is all about telling your story. You are the protagonist and the focal point. However, as with a lot of popular genres, people are only interested in your story if it follows a pretty generic script.

by Nicole Rixen, IGR Graduate Intern

When many people think about IGR, they immediately think about social justice. While it is true that IGR provokes us to think about social justice both on and off campus, I feel IGR provides so much beyond just understanding social justice. For example, when I talk with students, they tell me about all the skills and tools that they have gained and can use throughout their careers and lives.

Brandon Colbert graduated in 2007 and began his work with the Program on Intergroup Relations as a first year student through a dialogue class on socioeconomic status. He continued his involvement as a facilitator for dialogue classes on gender and SES as well as with the Youth Dialogues program in Metro Detroit. Brandon is currently commuting between Washington, D.C. and Michigan working on starting a new company called Awakening. We are honored that Brandon decided to devote so much of his time to IGR as an undergraduate and want our readers to know the incredible things that he has learned and is up to!

Bari Rogoff (’07) began her passion for the Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR) during her first year at U-M, when she participated in an IGR dialogue.  From there, she went on to facilitate three dialogues and co-founded CommonGround during her fourth year. We are so grateful that Bari chose to make IGR a part of her undergraduate experience and we wanted our readers to know little bit about Bari, her contributions to IGR, and how she uses dialogue in the “real world.”

IGR is very pleased to announce the new co-chairs of our alumni committee: Kadija M. Deen J.D. and Shana Schoem J.D.

In the past schoolyear, IGR started a Facebook storytelling series that allows IGR community members to tell their stories in their own voices. This enormously popular series, called #thisisigr, was inspired by Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton. The stories help IGR friends and colleagues to get to know each other, regardless of their specific avenues of involvement. Even if you do not use Facebook, you can catch up on some of the entries in this series, below.

IGR shines this month’s Alumni Spotlight on Adam Falkner, a 2007 Graduate of U-M and IGR. Adam was deeply involved in many aspects of the program while a student, and he went on to pursue a uniquely designed life path that incorporates many facets of his IGR experiences, which have significantly shaped who he is as an individual and a community leader. Adam works in the non-profit sector using arts and education to further dialogue and social justice, and is also currently pursuing a Ph.D.

IGR would like to send a fond farewell to A7med (Ahmed) Alawami, a long-time IGR community member. A7med has had a tremendous impact on the program through his commitment in many different avenues of IGR involvement including teaching, research, alumni outreach, and dialogue participation/facilitation. Most recently, A7med served as an instructor for IGR's Practicum in Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation course. A7med is moving to California and will soon be joined by his family. We wish them the best of everything and will miss them a lot!

With courses, workshop programs, research projects, and more, IGR's students work in a number of different settings. In 2014, we decided we needed a way to tie them together as a community. Thus, the Student Engagement Team (SET) was born. Read below to learn about the work of the SET team and what's happening in 2015!

As the Student Engagement Team co-coordinators, Elena Ross and Gloriela Iguina-Colòn work to unite all those involved with IGR in various capacities. They write:

"Here are some of the ways we do this:

by Jonathan Vanderbeck, IGR Graduate Student Intern

I’m new to IGR and will be working here for a year as a graduate intern from the School of Social Work. It’s been a great first month and I have enjoyed diving into my work. However, there is definitely a bit of a learning curve when it comes to understanding the work and role of IGR, particularly around courses regarding dialogue and facilitation. 

When I told my parents back in the summer that I had secured an internship at IGR, the first thing they did was ask me, 

“What is intergroup dialogue?”

The Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR) stands for the liberation of all people. We believe that none of us are free until all of us are free. IGR opposes all forms of oppression that result in the marginalization, exploitation, subjugation, violence and all forms of dehumanization against others on the basis of social identity, social group membership and positionality. IGR promotes social justice and the pursuit of “solutionary solutions” that “do the most good and the least harm for people, animals and the environment” (IHE 2008).

The 15-credit minor in intergroup relations education will change your life forever, combining with any major to provide students with skills to bravely achieve change together.

Students who complete the minor in intergroup relations education qualify for preferred admittance into the Marsal Family School of Education's Master of Arts in higher education.

The Patricia Gurin Certificate of Merit in Intergroup Relations is awarded to graduating undergraduate and graduate students who have demonstrated academic mastery in intergroup relations.

The liberatory education cord is worn with graduation caps and gowns to honor undergraduate and graduate students who have made significant contributions to advance the mission of IGR and liberatory education.

The Mark Chesler Library Collection connects the university community to more than 1200 books, films, and journals on a wide range of topics related to social identity, multiculturalism, intergroup relations, and social justice. Useful for conducting independent research, enhancing curricular content, or simply broadening horizons, materials are available for use to the entire university community and are listed in the U-M Library System's MIRLYN catalog.

May 30, 2023

An openness to new and differing ideas. An ability and confidence to communicate effectively across difference. Seeing conflict not as ‘bad,’ but as an opportunity for dialogue.