By Rory Dulock | Staff Writer
This spring, Baylor introduced a new initiative on campus — not one that focuses on a particular project, but one that focuses on civil discourse. The Bridging the Gap Initiative is aimed at students and faculty to become Bridgebuilding Fellows who learn to effectively communicate with others, and the Intercultural Engagement department is ready to continue the program.
Dr. Kevin Villegas, dean of Intercultural Engagement and Division of Student Life Initiatives, said the Bridging the Gap Initiative was funded by a grant from Interfaith America who champions the curriculum.
“When we received that grant, we decided to use the grant funding to create a training opportunity for students to go through the curriculum, and once those students went through the curriculum… then we deemed them as our first cohort of student Bridgebuilding Fellows,” Villegas said.
When they received another grant over the summer, Villegas said they used that to put 12 faculty through two days of training to become a cohort of faculty Bridgebuilding Fellows.
Villegas said the program is open to any student, and that this could be something that will be distinctive, setting students apart from others.
“If our graduates have the ability to bridge all kinds of differences and know how to disagree well, know how to listen, know how to share from their own experience [and] know how to navigate tension constructively, then they’re going to be head and shoulders above the students who did not develop those skills,” Villegas said.
Students and faculty trained in the curriculum will be “leveraged” to hold bridging events in their own communities and across campus, according to Villegas.
According to Villegas, the next cohort will be determined through nomination by current cohort leaders. Currently, Intercultural Engagement is trying to figure out how to train the next cohort of students without going through eight weeks of training. Villegas said the first student cohort felt it was a little too long.
“We are doing another round of training [during] the first weekend in October, and we’re going to do that on Friday afternoon and evening and then all day Saturday,” Villegas said. “So eight weeks of training we’re going to smoosh into a day and a half, and then we will have our second cohort.”
The most important part about the initiative is that it focuses on certain skills, Villegas said. The training has several different modules, but at first it focuses on developing listening skills. The second skill is story-sharing and what it means to share from one’s own lived experience that informs one’s perspective. The last skill is learning to navigate attention constructively.
“It’s really about skill development, practicing those skills in a trustworthy environment and then encouraging the ongoing practice of those skills, because if something is going to become habitual or embodied, you need to practice it just like you would a language, music instrument or a sport,” Villegas said. “Developing the willingness to learn the skills and then practicing the skills is essentially the Bridging the Gap curriculum.”
Andre Baesa, senior coordinator of Intercultural Engagement and Student Life Initiatives, said the Bridging the Gap program allows for faculty and students who participate to become role models in civil discourse.
“We are more similar than different if we can get into conversation with each other,” Baesa said. “One of the goals for this program is how can we get back to these conversations — hopefully face-to-face conversations — and how can we get back to hearing who we are as people.”
A unique aspect of this initiative is that it is also aligns under the university’s new Strategic Plan, Baylor in Deeds, which focuses on civil discourse, Baesa said. This means that Intercultural Engagement is focusing even more on civil discourse.
“Another thing that I love about this is is that I’m meeting students and people from all different walks of life,” Baesa said. “Because of the nature of this program and how there’s bridgebuilding innately in the title, students come curious and open to hearing differences of thoughts and perspectives — not to be convinced or changed — but just because they’re open to hearing different things.”
