The TRHT Center Alliance offers facilitated circles and other workshops by request for departments, units, and other groups at LMU. We also offer capacity building opportunities for faculty, staff, and students who are interested in building their capacity to engage in dialogue across difference, to facilitate spaces that catalyze growth, change, and a sense of belonging among all community members.
Story Circles
The signature practice of the TRHT national network are Rx Racial Healing Circles, which we call story circles at LMU. Story circles provide opportunities for participants to self-reflect on the experiences that have shaped them and to be witnessed in sharing their experiences with others through a process where they are supported in engaging authentically.
“As Sharon G. Mijares reminds us in her article ‘A Brief History of Circle,’ evidence of ritual circle gatherings for healing dates as far back as 300,000 years ago. People have been gathering in purposeful circles for a very long time. Many Indigenous groups still gather in circles. Examples are the people of First Nations in the Americas and the Maasai people in Kenya. The Stonehenge monument and the one thousand Senegambia stone circles of West Africa (nine of which have been inscribed on the World Heritage list of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) reflect a reverence for the circle formation that spans two millennia…The use of a human circle formation for peacemaking and healing is deeply rooted in traditional practices of Indigenous people the world over. The past thirty years have witnessed a resurgence of the value of circles for restoration and healing in many settings."
-- From "Rx Racial Healing: A Guide to Embracing Our Humanity," by Gail C. Christopher, pp. 97–98.
Workshops
The TRHT Center Alliance at LMU emphasizes building capacity to engage in conflict in ways that are generative and that ultimately strengthen relationships and our community. Workshops that focus on a range of related skills can be tailored to the needs of specific groups.
Facilitator Practice Group
Ongoing opportunities are available for faculty and staff to develop their facilitation skills related to conflict engagement, antiracism, and other areas that help foster an inclusive, restorative campus climate.