Difficult Dialogues

A Forum with Robert J. Nash and DeMethra Bradley

Monday, 08 Feb 2010 at 12:00 pm – Cardinal Room, Memorial Union

Robert J. Nash and DeMethra Bradley are coauthors of How to Talk about Hot Topics on Campus: From Polarization to Moral Conversation. They will outline a model for engaging the university community in productive and civil dialogue on the most difficult and controversial social, religious, political, and cultural topics. Their ideas reach across disciplines and are applicable to most any issue that could be uncomfortable to discuss, cause participants to be disrespectful of differing opinions, and ultimately be divisive to a campus community. This Spring Faculty Forum is open to the entire university community.

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Also, Faculty Roundtable Discussions with the 'Hot Topics' Authors
Monday, February 8, 2010
Cardinal Room, Memorial Union
9:30 - 11 am & 3:30 - 5:00 p.m.
Attend either or both sessions. Registration required: http://www.celt.iastate.edu/dd/homepage.html

These roundtable discussions will provide faculty the opportunity to share their experiences of handling difficult dialogues both in the classroom and other settings throughout campus. Authors will provide tips on how to construct and carry out difficult conversations from various vantage points.

For Roundtable Registration Information visit the difficult dialogues website at: http://www.celt.iastate.edu/dd/homepage.html

Robert J. Nash, University of Vermont bio
Robert J. Nash has been a professor in the College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont, Burlington, for 41 years. He specializes in philosophy of education, applied ethics, higher education, and religion, spirituality, and education. He holds graduate degrees in English, Theology/Religious Studies, Applied Ethics and Liberal Studies, and Educational Philosophy. He holds faculty appointments in teacher education, higher education administration, and interdisciplinary studies in education. He administers the Interdisciplinary Master’s Program, and he teaches applied ethics, religion, higher education, and philosophy of education courses, as well as scholarly personal narrative writing seminars (a genre of writing that he created), across four programs in the college, including the doctoral program in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. He has supervised over 100 theses and dissertations. He has published more than 100 articles in many of the leading journals in education at all levels. He has also published several book chapters, monographs, and essay book reviews. He is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Religion & Education, and one of its frequent contributors. Since 1996, he has published ten books (all still in print), several of them national award winners:
"Real World" Ethics: Frameworks for Educators and Human Service Professionals (1st edition);
"Real World" Ethics: Frameworks for Educators and Human Service Professionals (2nd edition);
Answering the "Virtuecrats": A Moral Conversation on Character Education;
Faith, Hype, and Clarity: Teaching About Religion in American Schools and Colleges;
Religious Pluralism in the Academy: Opening the Dialogue;
Spirituality, Ethics, Religion, and Teaching: A Professor’s Journey;
Liberating Scholarly Writing: The Power of Personal Narrative;
How To Talk about Hot Topics on Campus: From Polarization to Moral Conversation, first-author with DeMethra L. Bradley and Arthur W. Chickering.
Teaching Adolescents Religious Literacy in a Post-9/11 World, first-author with Penny Bishop;
Helping College Students Find Purpose: The Campus Guide to Meaning-Making, first author with Michele Murray.
He has done a variety of consultancies throughout the country for a number of human service organizations, public schools, and colleges and universities. He is a frequent, featured speaker at the national level. In 2003, he was named the Official University Scholar in the Social Sciences and the Humanities at The University of Vermont, only the second faculty member in the history of the College of Education and Social Services to be so honored. In 2009, he received the Joseph Anthony Abruscato Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship at the University of Vermont.

DeMethra LaSha Bradle Bio:
Dr. DeMethra LaSha Bradley is a scholar and practitioner at the University of Vermont. She serves as an instructor in the College of Education and Social Services (CESS) and holds a dual-appointment in the Division of Enrollment Management and the Division of Student and Campus Life. Her scholarly personal narrative dissertation earned her the CESS Outstanding Academics and Service Award.

Dr. Bradley is the second author of the national best seller, How to Talk About Hot Topics on Campus: From Polarization to Moral Conversation (co-authors Dr. Robert J. Nash and Dr. Arthur W. Chickering), published by Jossey-Bass/Wiley in 2008. She has also co-authored book chapters in Searching for Spirituality in Higher Education (2007)and The American University in a Postsecular Age: Religion and the Academy (2007). The latter title was a recent recipient of the highly prestigious Lilly Fellows Program Book Award.

Dr. Bradley received the American College Personnel Association’s Annuit Coeptis award for outstanding achievements as a scholar and a practitioner, and has been recognized by NASPA-Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education with an Outstanding New Professional Award. She is a national speaker on the topics of moral conversation, applied ethics, religion and spirituality, and scholarly personal narrative methodology.

In the near future, Dr. Bradley (along side Dr. Robert J. Nash) will begin writing a "how-to" manual for scholarly personal narrative writers. Although she hails from Los Angeles, California, Dr. Bradley has called Vermont home since 2003.

Cosponsored By:

• ISU Difficult Dialogues
• Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government)