Community Reads: Community Agreements

A guide to the Community Reads program at UWB/CC Campus Library

Community Agreements - You Belong Here

The Campus Library supports you! A goal of the Community Reads program is to build community through a common intellectual experience. During times of political division and unrest, libraries continue to provide tools for advancing and creating knowledge, fostering critical thinking and evidence-based arguments, and promoting reasoned dialog. In this, we agree to:

BE: Be present. Be open to new forms of knowledge.

SPEAK: Speak from your own experiences. Don’t speak for others even if you share the same identity.

LISTEN: Listen respectfully and intently to other perspectives. Let people finish sentences before responding.

RESPOND: Respond to what has been said, not the person saying it.

DIALOGUE: Hold space for dialogue instead of debate. It’s not about winning an argument.

COMMUNICATE: Challenge yourself to communicate in new ways.

EXPECTATIONS: Expect and accept discomfort and non-closure. Allow feelings to emerge in yourself and others without trying to “fix” them.

CONFIDENTIALITY: Respect confidentiality. Personal information/comments should not be shared outside the space.

PROCESS: Grant yourself and others permission to express ideas and thoughts imperfectly.

Community Agreements (PDF version)

Resources for engaging with community dialogue

The Center for Civic Reflection
The Center for Civic Reflection’s mission is to build community, deepen understanding, and strengthen commitment to civic life by helping people, communities and organizations think and talk about the meaning, value and impact of their work in the world.
The Michael Harrington Center at Queens College
The Michael Harrington Center at Queens College is an outreach-oriented social science institute that promotes public discourse about social issues, advocates for social change, and partners with others to build a more equitable society. The Center sponsors community dialogues, colloquia, and workshops on such topics as public health, educational equity, racism, sexism, genderism, conflict transformation, income inequality, poverty, and inter-religious and ethnic conflicts.
The Teaching-Learning Academy (TLA) at Western Washington University
The Teaching-Learning Academy (TLA) is a dialogue forum for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) at Western Washington University. Engaged in studying the intersections between teaching and learning, TLA members include students, faculty, and staff from across the University, as well as several alumni and community members.