Colleges are often NOT collegial. As crossroads of students from around the world and around the block, of faculty struggling for recognition and decent pay, of staff who must constantly juggle demands of students, faculty and administrators, colleges are petri dishes of conflict. This can be awful or it can be tremendously exciting. The Collegio program unites diversityDNA software (human diversity, individual insight) with structured storytelling to provide strong communication skills. Colleges should be collegial. Let's learn how.

1. Communicate to connect.

2. Here’s the problem.
In colleges across the U.S.,
students, faculty, and staff increasingly
express concern, distress and anger.
They feel:
Disengaged
Disrespected
Unheard
Misunderstood Excluded
Isolated
Under-valuedStigmatized

3. WHY?
Colleges are daunting places for
newcomers, whether students, faculty or
staff. Each feels themselves to be "a
stranger in a strange land."
Newcomers are immediately
plunged into the deep end: new
rules, new processes, new people,
new geography, new experiences,
new expectations.
In this complex context exist innumerable
opportunities to miscommunicate,
misunderstand & BE misunderstood.
Concerns and conflict are amplified
by unfolding political developments,
social movements and social
media.At the same time, long term
employees (faculty and staff) apply
spoken and unspoken rules in a fast-
evolving world.
Perceptions, experiences,
expectations, and beliefs clash.
Not an easy answer.
Our difficult history of
race is a factor, but the college
context itself is an incubator
for growth, change, and conflict.

4. In 2015, students across the country began to voice their distress
out loud, most specifically about race, making a range of demands
to administrations. This approach will likely continue.
Many college responses: initiate and expand programs to support
& affirm diversity, inclusion, and racial justice.
Plans include:
• Hiring more diverse faculty and staff
• Admitting more diverse students
• Mandating campus-wide diversity training
• Including diversity courses in core requirements
• Establishing and funding more multicultural clubs
: "

5. While these actions demonstrate
good will, good intent & good risk management,
they alone do not solve the underlying problem.
40 years after the turbulent ‘70s,
students, faculty and staff STILL
feel isolated, powerless, excluded....

6. Brandeis: 1975
Brandeis: 2015
~ The Harvard Crimsom, April 30, 1975
~ The Boston Globe, November 23, 2015

7. As much as we might think colleges are automatically "collegial" -- most are
inevitably hotbeds of miscommunication and conflict. Conflict itself is not a
problem; in fact, it is a shared, universal human experience arising when goals
and perceptions clash. The underlying problem is that many members of college
"communities" are not taught or do not use effective communication and conflict
management skills. Not only do people perceive conflict in many ways (or not see
it at all), but many are extremely uncomfortable with conflict, and either avoid the
problematic issue altogether or confront it using categorical, generic terms. All of
these often exacerbate misunderstanding and conflict.
WHAT did
you say?!
What DID
you say?!
What did I
SAY?!

8. Using categories to identify
and make assumptions...
Race
Religion
Age
Disability
Gender
Nationality
Physical
appearance
Ethnicity
US
US
THEM
THEM
THEM
THEM
THEM
THEM
....leads to disconnection,
antagonism, and
dehumanization.
versus

9. Painful results.
• Decreasing retention rates across U.S. colleges
• Plummeting morale
• Lower learning outcomes
• Decreasing alumni giving
• Increasing legal fees
• Increasing operating costs and tuition

10. So, what's the
solution?
Communicate to
connect.

11. “AA divergent, skills-based, on-going
program using diversityDNA® and
structured storytelling to assist
college students explore and compare
their own and others' internal values,
rules, expectations, actions and
perceptions. This combination of
insight and shared experience
is a powerful connector.”
~ Deb Volberg Pagnotta, Founder

12. Collegio™
is created and delivered
by a superhero team with deep experience
in teaching, storytelling, intercultural communication,
conflict resolution, and curriculum design.
Jen Gerometta, Ph.D
Communication faculty
Metrics, researcher, storyteller
Joseph Nwokeabia
Creative director, content creator
Denise Chan, BA
Storyteller, marketer, designer
Deb Volberg Pagnotta, JD
Founder, Interfacet, Inc.
Founder, diversityDNA llp
Communication faculty, twice awarded
teaching excellence awards

13. How does
it work?
Collegio™ combines THREE powerful
tools to help students and other
campus members better understand
themselves and others, and communicate
to connect not divide.
ddiversityDNA®, software which allows users to explore
internal values, perceptions, expectations and beliefs as
connective and evolving, rather than static and divisive.
dDNA sparks curiosity, demonstrates commonalities of
experience, and connects users as individuals not
categories.
& Structured storytelling, which
releases oxytocin, creates
neural coupling, and supports
the theory of mind. All of these
help storytellers and listeners
strengthen empathic skills.
&
Ongoing, immersive and
experiential structure to
develop and support skills.
dDNA concept video (3 mins)

14. The following timeline
and component description
cover the student-oriented program.
Collegio™ also offers
counterpart programs
(dDNA + storytelling)
for
faculty, staff and administrators

15. Sample Timeline for Student Population

16. Timeline Cont’d

17. • Collegio provides each incoming student with a private login username
to diversityDNA®. (User group license from diversityDNA LLP.)
• Prior to orientation, students are required to create their own
anonymized dDNA iceberg and explore their own internal values.
• Each student also must complete a 30-minute, interactive, online
module reviewing the baseline dDNA concepts.
• Each student will be provided a dDNA workbook identifying range of
perceptions related to experiential dimensions.
• At first-year orientation, leaders provide 30-minute overview of the
Collegio program and distribute booklet with pertinent dates.
• Collegio will provide a dedicated portal for students to access,
containing link to dDNA website, online module, written materials and
video archives.
Menu elements of Collegio™(adaptable to organization)

18. • Students will watch/attend curated story event/s (2 to 3 weeks
into the semester).
• Each student will be assigned a partner; they will interview each
other based on dDNA-related questions.
• Workshops on storytelling skills.
• Choose dDNA-based themes for voluntary student story events.
• Coaching for storytelling (peer to peer).
• Campus-wide juried story event. Audiovisual recording.
• Create video archives: available and showcased to other
students.
Menu elements of Collegio (cont'd)

19. Staff
Faculty
Collegio™ helps
the entire campus community.
Students
Administrators

20. Develop the skills to communicate to connect.
Be an individual,
see an individual.

21. Wholly owned and created by Interfacet, Inc.
A licensed and certified dDNA® provider
2016 © Interfacet, Inc.
™

22. Collegio™
Contact us
914.997.8888
info@interfacet.com
Learn more
about diversityDNA®
about storytelling