Start the Semester with Purpose
Every new semester brings a chance to reset. The Fall Planning Toolkit equips you with research-backed resources to strengthen campus relationships, support student wellbeing, and cultivate inclusive, dialogue-centered communities.
All resources are free, adaptable, and designed for real-world campus use.
Icebreaker Activities to Jumpstart Dialogue
Kick off the semester with these high-impact icebreakers, designed to quickly build trust and connection in any group. Whether you’re starting a class, orientation, or student organization meeting, these activities help set the tone for open and meaningful conversation.
Pairs of students work quickly to find five things in common, sparking curiosity and connection.
Partners ask and answer questions in rapid succession to move from small talk to real conversation.
Students rotate through brief, prompt-driven conversations to encourage sharing and group comfort.
Strategy Tools for Campus-Wide Impact
Take your campus dialogue efforts further with these research-backed, high-impact resources—ready to download and share.
One-Pager: An Ecosystem Approach to Campus Dialogue
This one-page visual introduces a systems-level view of dialogue integration across campus roles and settings. It helps campus leaders understand the broader ecosystem and where their own efforts fit within a shared culture-building strategy.
One-Pager: Four Ways to Start Building a Culture of Dialogue
This visual guide offers research-backed, practical strategies for any campus looking to strengthen its dialogue culture. Each approach is adaptable and field-tested, making it easy to start building momentum, engage stakeholders, and drive real change across your institution.
Campus Culture Scorecard
Assess Your Campus's Dialogue Readiness
A self-assessment tool to help your team understand current strengths, surface blind spots, and align around shared priorities.
Why Invest in Dialogue Now?
Today’s campuses are navigating an era of heightened polarization and rising student stress. As public trust in higher education faces new challenges, institutions need strategies that build bridges, foster belonging, and strengthen campus culture. Constructive dialogue offers a proven, nonpartisan way forward. Campuses using CDI’s approach are seeing measurable gains: students feel more connected, campus climates are more resilient, and leadership is better equipped to support their communities—across differences and through uncertainty.
Dialogue is not just another program; it’s an investment in the future of your campus. By taking a comprehensive, research-backed approach, CDI helps you cultivate an environment where students, faculty, and staff can thrive, even in politically complex moments.
"One of the greatest impediments to developing truly inclusive communities is equipping people with the capability to interact across divides... CDI served as a tangible way of helping students understand why this is important."
— Dr. Ronald Crutcher, President Emeritus, University of Richmond
