The Center for Intercultural Dialogue is one outgrowth of the National Communication Association Summer Conference on Intercultural Dialogue, held July 22-26, 2009, at Maltepe University, in Istanbul, Turkey. NCA provided $5000 of travel support for that conference, and 10 grants of $250, $500, and $750 were distributed. Demand for these grants was intense, and the process demonstrated that even small grants permit access to matching funds sufficient to travel for research-related purposes. Many participants had never previously traveled outside the United States, although all were interested in the topic. Participants wanted a way to encourage further travel for intercultural research, and so a proposal was brought before the Council board of directors at their March 2010 meeting, which was approved. Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz was appointed Director of CID at that same meeting.
An article was published in Spectra Dec08 advertising the conference, and another in Spectra Oct09 describing what occurred. A special issue of the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication was one result of the conference, and the book Case Studies in Intercultural Dialogue was another. The Foreword (“Creating spaces for intercultural dialogue”), and the first chapter (“Facilitating intercultural dialogue through innovative conference design”) describe conference ideas and activities in far greater detail than is possible here.
The following set of photographs were taken during the conference.
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 