By Ieva Notturno
6/30/2016
Ieva Notturno with two other NCDD network members at the NCDD conference in 2014.
All nine IF Fellows will be participating in the biennial National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) conference in the Boston area on October 14-16. The conference theme is Bridging Our Divides and it invites participants to “share stories and strategies about people working together across our race divides, our religious divides, our economic divides, our divisions around gender, orientation, and expression, our generational divides, our divides between government officials and everyday citizens, and others.” NCDD is a large network—with over 2,200 members worldwide—and “serves as a gathering place, a resource clearinghouse, a news source, and a facilitative leader for this extraordinary community.” Its conferences usually attract about 400 practitioners.
This is the 7th national conference that NCDD is organizing. It will be the second NCDD conference for most of IF’s Fellows, but the fourth NCDD conference for Pete Shively and the third for Dennis Boyer and Jeff Prudhomme. IF facilitated or co-facilitated three sessions at the last conference in 2014. This year, several Fellows have submitted proposals and are seeking collaborative partners. I know that some of IF’s colleagues and friends in the deliberative community will be there. If you are planning to be there, please do not hesitate to contact and collaborate with us on joint projects.