Parents Weekend Essential Photovoice
Over UVA Family Weekend, several family groups and other interested UVA community members gathered in Newcomb Hall to intentionally and openly connect through photographs. The prompt was simple: look on your phone and find 1-2 photos that show some defining aspect of the past few months for you. They could show areas where you’ve experienced flourishing or challenges you’ve faced. Read more about it on our blog here!
Fall 2023 Essential Photovoice Facilitator Cohort
For 3 weeks in October, a group of 8 folks met and participated in a series of facilitated conversations about community using the Essential Photovoice (EPV) dialogue format. Learn more about this cohort and see their zine on our blog here!
More about Essential Photovoice
Essential Partners was founded in 1989, with the mission of helping equip people to live and work better together in community by building trust and understanding across differences. Their trademark approach -Reflective Structured Dialogue- empowers people to have healthier, more complex, more inclusive conversations about polarizing differences of values, beliefs, and identities.
Interfaith Photovoice has been around almost as long as EP. It is an arts-based approach to understanding that invites participants to respond to a series of prompts with their own photographs. These photos are used in a series of meetings as the basis for small and large group discussions. At the end of a project, the visuals and narratives are used to engage a broader audience.
Essential Photovoice combines the concepts and methodologies of both approaches to bring more richness to connecting around or across a social issues, and to illuminate and illustrate what is important to those impacted (or inspired!) by curating an exhibition, hosting an event, or collaborating on a tangible item through which other people can engage or better understand that topic.
Previous Projects
RSVP for our UVA Family Weekend Lunch + Essential Photovoice Experience! Sat., Nov. 4, 11:30-12:45 Programs & Council Office, Newcomb Hall
Family Weekend is a terrific time to reconnect: over food, festivities, new friends, and all the pleasures of life at UVA.
It’s also an opportunity for meaningful family conversation – a time to ask the question, “How’s it really going?”
Amidst the excitement of college, studies find that 57% of university students suffer from stress and 45% from loneliness. Meanwhile, back at home, many parents experience loss over their child’s move to college. There are many ups and downs, highs and lows!
Theological Horizons, a Christian faith-centered organization at UVA, offers a safe haven for both believers and seekers; we curate conversations that connect us.
Join us for a free lunch and a guided experience of Essential Photovoice @UVA: an art-based approach to meaningful communication with amateur photography at its core.
Photovoice is a dialogue format that invites you into a facilitated small group conversation that is low-pressure and fun. In a casual setting, you’ll be invited to talk about whatever is on your mind: from your hopes, struggles, and friendships to your faith, community, and everyday life --- simply captured in mobile phone snapshots.
No special skills required. All you need is your mobile phone (or a print photo or two) and a spirit of curiosity.
Grab friends and family members and come for a delicious meal and some fun, relaxing time together!
Saturday, November 4th from 11:30AM-12:45PM in the Programs and Council office (PAC) on the first floor of Newcomb Hall. RESERVE YOUR SPOT
Join us for a 3 session dialogue training!
Theological Horizons is seeking a group of interested individuals to participate in a 3 session dialogue series called Essential Photovoice. Photovoice is an arts based approach to interpersonal understanding that has participant photography at its core; it’s a fresh expression of the Deeper Dialogues Initiative that goes beyond words to engage the very images that make up our lives.
We warmly invite you to join TH’s second Photovoice cohort to both experience and learn to facilitate this innovative dialogue model over 3 sessions!
The sessions will take place over 3 Mondays: October 2, 9, and 16, from 5-7PM.
Participants will learn to facilitate through experiencing Photovoice, which will involve taking and then sharing photos in response to prompts about their communities.
All are welcome to participate, whether UVA students, faculty, or Charlottesville community members.
Participants are offered a $100 stipend for their time, and will also have opportunities to practice their skills and earn other compensation as facilitators for TH events in the future.
No photography skills or special equipment are needed, beyond a simple method for taking photos (a phone or camera).
If you are interested, please fill out this form by Monday, September 18th. We look forward to hearing from you!
Act justly, Love Mercy:
A Community conversation
On Sunday, April 2nd from 3:30-5:30pm at Alumni Hall (221 Emmet St S, Charlottesville, VA 22903) UVA students, faculty, staff, and administrators, along with Charlottesville community members, will gather to discuss how they see Bryan Stevenson's ideas of justice and mercy at work in our daily lives.
ON RITUALS OF HOPE
Our Fall 2022 Dialogue featured Vanessa Ochs, UVA Professor of Jewish Studies. We invite you to view the video of her talk — and then take the handout of thoughts and questions into your own conversations around hope, grief and loss. We are grateful to the UVA Parents Program for their support and to Essential Partners for their coaching!
ON HEALING WITH IAN SOLOMON
Dr. Ian Solomon is the Dean of the Batten School of Public Policy. Watch his Spark Talk, which kicked off the fifth in a series of five Deeper Dialogues at UVA hosted by Theological Horizons in partnership with Essential Partners. We thank the UVA Parents Fund for their generous support.
ON FORGIVENESS WITH AMRISHA VAISH
Amrisha Vaish is the Pamela Feinour Edmonds and Franklin S. Edmonds, Jr. Discovery Associate Profressor in Psychology at the University of Virginia.
on Hope with Shaka SydnoR
Shaka Sydnor is an Assistant Dean of Students at UVA.
ON INSPIRATION WITH CAROLYN MITCHELL DILLARD
Carolyn Mitchell Dillard is the University-Community Liaison | Division for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion | The Center for Community Partnerships at UVA (watch her talk)
ON resilience WITH matt weber
Matt Weber is the Senior Assistant to Pres. Jim Ryan at UVA.
What is the Deeper Dialogues Initiative at UVA?
Deeper Dialogues is a series of facilitated and structured small-group conversations around five topics of human flourishing taking place through June 2022. It is sponsored by Theological Horizons in partnership with Essential Partners. ALL ARE WELCOME.
What is the goal of Deeper Dialogues?
The Deeper Dialogues initiative has three primary goals:
● To convene a variety of stakeholders — faculty, students, staff & administrators — from across the university community to improve understanding and connection around common challenges and goals;
● To leverage the unique resources of the university context (e.g. intellectual curiosity, original research, physical proximity) to facilitate honest exchange and promote greater collaboration between and among various members of the university community; AND
● To give community members an experience of reflective structured dialogue in which conversations of meaning and purpose foster a university culture of greater compassion and care, with the added hope that participants will leave equipped with dialogic communication tools transferable to other UVA spaces, groups and discussions.
Who HAVE BEEN the facilitators?
Why UVA?
In challenging circumstances - whether it be a global pandemic or contested questions about an institution’s legacy and future - it is vital for students and university leaders to understand and connect with one another as human beings. At UVA, there are few opportunities available for faculty, leaders, and students to bring their multiplicity of voices and perspectives together around questions of common purpose. There are also few opportunities for community members to share their experience, wisdom, research, and/or leadership that can enrich common life. The Deeper Dialogues initiative uses conversation as a tool to facilitate and strengthen valuable connections at UVA.
Who Is It For?
All Wahoos are most welcome. If you are a UVA student, a member of faculty, staff, or administration please join us and invite others from the UVA community as well. People of all traditions and commitments (or none) are warmly encouraged to bring their valuable contributions to these Deeper Dialogues.
What Can I Expect?
Each set of dialogues centers on a quality of being that is central to human flourishing: Resilience, Healing, Forgiveness, Inspiration, and Hope. Each one follows the Reflective Structured Dialogue (RSD) model developed by Essential Partners, which is designed to foster listening and genuine curiosity amongst participants. Among features of this distinctive model:
A 15-minute introductory reflection by a senior member of the university community sharing personal experience and/or relevant research related to the theme of the dialogue;
Dialogue stakeholders are broken up into small groups of 6-8 people and a facilitator. These groups include a mix of students, faculty, staff, and/or members of the administration;
Within these small groups, the facilitator guides members through a series of questions, reflective/note-taking periods; responses are given in a “go-round” fashion with everyone sharing for an equal amount of time and questioning with an attitude of open inquiry.
Multiple 6-8 member dialogue groups are convened for each of the five dialogue topics in order to accommodate as many members of the community as would like to participate;
The two dialogues held in Spring 2021 will be convened virtually.
All dialogues are closely timed to last no more than 75 minutes for a total event time of 90 minutes..
Where Do I Sign Up?
Registration opens one month before each dialogue. Space is limited and dialogue participation will be assigned on a first come, first serve basis. To be notified of upcoming Deeper Dialogues, email info@theologicalhorizons.org.
Can I help facilitate?
Yes, please! To learn more about how you can join the ranks of trained Essential Partners’ RSD facilitators visit: https://whatisessential.org/workshops or email karen@theologicalhorizons.org. Theological Horizons offers scholarships to these workshops.
How Can I Find Out More?
Email info@theologicalhorizons.org.
Who are Theological Horizons and Essential Partners?
Theological Horizons is a ministry that supports believers and seekers in academia by providing a welcoming community for engaging faith, thought and life. Since its founding at the University of Virginia in 2000, it has established credibility as a respected, welcoming Christian study center, with a reputation that grants space to advance spiritual perspectives as valued elements of community conversations.
Over the past year, several students involved with Theological Horizons have received training from Essential Partners in Cambridge, MA, a research-based group dedicated to helping communities cultivate greater resilience, cohesion, understanding, and trust through dialogue and collaboration. All of the dialogues at UVA will be facilitated by trained staff, many of whom are UVA students trained in Essential Partners’ Reflective Structured Dialogue model.
THANK YOU UVA PARENTS FUND FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT OF DEEPER DIALOGUES!