37th Academic Chairpersons Conference

Conflict within or between academic units can result in intractable impasses or can produce new understandings and outcomes.

Academic leaders may need to address and facilitate faculty and staff through emerging or recurring conflicts. These disputes might be minor or have the potential to impact working relationships and departmental productivity. This highly interactive workshop will provide a variety of lenses to analyze and understand the nature of disputes and conflict in the academy. Workshop participants will learn to listen for emerging conflicts, define the nature of the conflict and a learn a variety of facilitation skills to help individuals/groups better manage and resolve the conflict. Workshop participants will practice using new conflict management tools as they work with a variety of cases. Participants will also learn to identify conflicts that can be managed locally and those that may require external intervention or referrals.