Highlanders explore bridge between urban, rural communities at Power of Dialogue

Each summer, a small group of Radford University students unite with students from Georgetown University for a powerful and intimate learning experience in experiential negotiation and conflict resolution.

The program, “Power of Dialogue: Deconstructing the Rural-Urban Divide,” is designed to offer 10 students from each university an opportunity to explore in-depth conflict resolution skills and develop the cultural dexterity needed to serve as a bridge between urban and rural communities.

Radford hosts the program for the first three days at its picturesque rural Selu Conservancy. The program then shifts to a more urban setting in Washington, D.C., Georgetown University’s city.

“Students work through the differences they have using the conflict resolution skills they actively learn throughout the week, and it becomes a very powerful program for everyone involved,” explained Don Martin, the Radford criminal justice instructor who started the program six years ago. It was initially called Hoyas and Highlanders.

One of the “overarching lessons that came from this program was that, while I might have been very different from the Georgetown students, I learned that we have so much in common,” said Gracie Howard, a senior political science major from Narrows, Virginia, who participated in the 2024 Power of Dialogue program. “We all connected through many exercises throughout the trip that highlighted the human in each of us.”

The Power of Dialogue experience is “truly a rare opportunity” for Radford students to learn and grow, Howard noted.

“This class provided such a unique learning experience that I believe everyone should have,” she said. “The lessons that you learn and the connections made on this trip are irreplaceable. This course provides hands-on learning exercises that cannot be done in the classroom, and it helped us all develop as individuals.”

The universal theme of the program, said senior political science major Sarah Showalter, is examining “what conflict looks like and learning how to handle conflict, and what can we do better when in conflict.”

Showalter participated in the 2024 program and recently recalled some tense moments between the two groups. However, they learned, through the program’s lessons, how to effectively resolve those conflicts and strive to “understand each other’s perspective.”

The program helps reaffirm what the students innately know, Showalter explained. “We’re not really all that different. We’re all just human beings. We want to make friends. We want to get along.”

Once the week of dialogue between the two student groups finished, participating students were tasked with writing a paper. Howard used the opportunity to research and write about her home, Giles County, and its efforts to combat the opioid crisis. 

“The idea of my paper sparked from a lesson we had during the Power of Dialogue trip,” said Howard, who minors in criminal justice and legal studies at Radford. “We had a professor give a presentation on how opioids affected and still do affect Appalachia. This topic spoke to me in volumes because all of my life, I have seen how opioids have taken over my community.”

Showalter wrote a thoroughly researched and investigative paper on the 1960s desegregation in her home, Floyd County, Virginia. She recommended the course for all Radford students, no matter their major, “because we live in such a politically polarized time right now,” she said, “so learning how to manage conflict is an extremely helpful skill to learn.”

To learn more about participating in Power of Dialogue, contact Don Martin at dwmartin1@radford.edu.