Intergroup Dialogue at UCLA
The UCLA Intergroup Relations (IGR) Committee was established in January 2008 as part of the Office of Student Affairs Campus Diversity Initiative. Its members are students, staff, faculty and executive management from Student Affairs, the College of Letters & Science and departments across campus. The committee seeks to enhance UCLA’s campus climate by implementing programs that will improve understanding, tolerance and communication between different groups.
The first action of UCLA’s IGR Committee was the launching of UCLA’s Intergroup Dialogue Course in Winter Quarter 2009. The course is specifically designed to encourage communication and foster understanding among different identity groups, such as men vs. women, heterosexual vs. homosexual, or Muslims vs. Jews, that have historically experienced misunderstanding or conflict. The committee explored dialogue methods used by other universities as a means of guiding the development of the UCLA Dialogue course.