TU/e President Koen Janssen already announced the dialogue session during the raising of the Peace Flag on the TU/e campus last December. The format of the meeting, the date, and the name have now been finalized: Community in difficult times.

On Monday, February 9, the dialogue session will take place from 18:30 to 21:00h in the central hall of Atlas, with room for a maximum of fifty participants. Janssen himself will be present, along with representatives from Human Resources.

Three rounds

Each table will seat six participants and a facilitator, who will guide the dialogue. The conversation will consist of three rounds, each centered on a main question. The first round serves as an introduction and starts on a positive note: what do you enjoy most about being part of the TU/e community?

In the second round, participants will reflect on how they experience uncertain times on campus. In the final round, they will discuss how the community can be strengthened in times of global tensions.

Blind spots

Students and staff can register for the dialogue session via this link. “This is an invitation to anyone who wants to share how difficult times affect them,” says Lara Hofstra, co-organizer and student diversity officer. This can include experiences related to natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, or the impact of a cyberattack.

Hofstra is organizing the dialogue sessions together with a team of seven staff members and students, on behalf of the Executive Board (CvB). “We hope to identify our blind spots: issues the university may not see, but that are very much present within the community.”

Benefits

The dialogue sessions follow clear ground rules, explains co-organizer and life coach Margit van Tuijl, who is involved through TINT (an organization focused on well-being, personal growth, and life questions). “You approach the conversation with curiosity and ask questions, without sharing your own opinions. You speak only from your own experience. On a small scale, we want to do what actually needs to happen more broadly in society: start talking to one another again.”

Van Tuijl continues: “As an engineer, you also need to learn how to deal with different cultures and perspectives. What you practice during this dialogue session, is something you will benefit from later in your career as well. Hopefully, this attitude will carry over into the workplace—people learning from this way of communicating and bringing it into their own work environment.”

At the same time, not everyone who feels unsafe on campus may feel comfortable sharing their story at a full table in the central hall of Atlas. The organizers are still exploring how to involve this group as well, for example by offering the option to share experiences online and anonymously. “Even so, a face-to-face dialogue at the table with a facilitator is the main format we are aiming for,” Hofstra emphasizes.

Pilot

Social safety—another topic high on the university’s agenda—is not the main focus of this dialogue session. “We are not specifically looking at social unsafety, but at how conflicts outside the university affect the community,” Hofstra explains. “This is a topical issue. If you mix social unsafety related to work culture with social unsafety resulting from external developments, you end up with two different conversations and no real dialogue.”

The organizers see the dialogue session as a starting point. “This is truly a pilot,” says Van Tuijl. “We want to take the lessons learned here into future dialogue sessions, for example on social safety in the workplace, but also on topics like climate.” Hofstra adds: “We hope this approach will become a standard part of how we engage in dialogue here. That when issues arise within the community, we know how to better understand one another. Only then can we start to change things.”

This article was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.