Program on Intergroup Relations

Program Mission

The Program on Intergroup Relations (PIR) facilitates dialogue among students from different social and cultural backgrounds. We provide students with a proactive educational experience that promotes the exploration of group identities and open discussion of social justice issues such as discrimination based on class, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.

PIR seeks to advance students' understanding of and respect for diversity and social justice issues and to augment students' skills in responding to intergroup differences and conflicts.

Pedagogical Model

An intergroup dialogue is a facilitated face-to-face meeting between students from different social identity groups. Ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, geographical origin, social class and other characteristics broadly define these groups.

Students have the opportunity to explore commonalities and differences and address stereotypes, misinformation and misconceptions. It also offers a safe space to explore the intellectual and emotional aspects of identity, oppression and privilege. Through intergroup dialogue, long-standing or potential intergroup conflict can be brought into the open and critically examined.

Our pedagogical model is based on University of Michigan's Program on Intergroup Relations.