Perspectives: Building A Shared Foundation 

The CDI describes a culture of inquiry and dialogue through five institutional pillars and values. The pillars extend the work beyond individual skill-building by identifying the conditions an institution must address if dialogue is expected to become part of everyday learning, leadership, and community life.

1. Leadership Commitment: Leaders communicate why inquiry and dialogue matter, model the practices expected of others, provide resources, and remain accountable for the institutional conditions that shape participation.
2. Curriculum and Pedagogy: Academic learning creates opportunities to examine complexity, encounter different perspectives, ask substantive questions, and practice disagreement without reducing intellectual rigor or human dignity.
3. Co-Curricular Experience: Programs and experiences outside the curriculum give students, faculty, and staff structured opportunities to apply dialogue practices across roles, disciplines, and communities.
4. Policies, Processes, and Structures: Institutional systems should support open inquiry, accessibility, clear expectations, responsible decision-making, and appropriate routes for addressing conflict, barriers, or harm.
5. Measurement and Organizational Learning: Pratt assesses participation, access, experience, and program learning; communicates what is known and not yet known; and uses evidence and community feedback to improve the work.

CDI identifies five values that support this institutional approach:

1. Pluralism: recognizing that people hold different identities, experiences, beliefs, and ways of understanding the world.
2. Open Inquiry: creating conditions in which people can ask meaningful questions, examine assumptions, and engage complexity.
3. Free Expression: supporting the exchange of ideas while recognizing that expression exists within institutional responsibilities, applicable policies, and the impact of power and context.
4. Constructive Dialogue: using curiosity, listening, reflection, and accountable communication to engage across difference.
5. Trust: building credibility through clear expectations, consistent practice, transparency, accessibility, and follow-through.

These pillars and values come from CDI’s institutional framework. Pratt should explain how it applies them through the ECC framework rather than imply that adopting the language, completing the online lessons, or holding dialogue sessions is sufficient evidence of institutional change.

1. Open the invitation sent from Perspectives to your Pratt email 
2. Accept the invitation, create a password, and review CDI’s Terms of Service and privacy information.
3. Sign in and select “Get Started” to begin your lessons. 
4. Complete all six online lessons, including pre/post and interactive quizzes. 
5. Access the completion badge and certificate.

Community engagement sessions are offered throughout the academic year and are open to students, faculty, and staff. These experiences reinforce key concepts introduced through Perspectives, encourage continued participation, strengthen individual and collective capacity, deepen relationships, and support shared responsibility. 

Community Dialogue Circles (offered monthly) provide structured opportunities to examine selected institutional and community topics through facilitated conversation. Potential topics include identity and belonging, free inquiry and creative expression, civic engagement, faith and spirituality, ethics and community accountability.

Dialogue In-Practice Circles (Peer-to-Peer Small-Group Discussions) are structured, peer-to-peer opportunities for participants to apply dialogue skills in small groups. Peers lead sessions, supported by Perspectives-trained facilitators. Potential topics include story-sharing, building trust, listening for values, conflict-response skills, leadership and power-dynamics awareness, and problem-solving.