This interactive workshop will be an opportunity for Mount Holyoke students to explore intergroup dialogue (IGD) as an empowering practice for affirming neurodiversity on campus, within relationships, and, when applicable, within one’s own neurodivergent self. Within an intentionally co-created space, we will dialogue meaningfully across differences, identify power structures that facilitate ableism at Mount Holyoke, and illuminate our internalizations of oppressive systems that hinder the flourishing of neurodivergent wisdom.

Using dialogic activities as our guide, we will learn tangible skills for dialoguing with ourselves, one another, and the various spaces that comprise our campus. Attending to the unique intersections between neurotypicality, binary gender expectations, white supremacy, and colonialism, we will use dialogic practices to closely listen to and compassionately challenge the messaging that urges students to meet ableist and sanist academic expectations and performances. By orienting ourselves within disability justice, healing justice, and loving justice frameworks, we will experience the neuro-affirming practices of intergroup dialogue via an ethics of mutuality and care. 

Session capacity: 30 students