This activity enables participants to define empathy, recognize how we develop empathy for fictional characters, discuss the relationship between empathy and culture, and articulate how empathy for fictional characters might translate to empathy for real people or situations.

Disagree Better: Empathy Gym is a tool that can be used to facilitate conversation between people across party lines. In this activity based on Jamil Zaki's concept of the empathy gym, participants will have a conversation with someone who has a different view than them. Instead of arguing, they will ask each other how they came to develop that opinion and simply listen to each other's point of view.

In this episode of Clear + Vivid, Alan Alda interviews Christian Picciolini, a former member of a neo-Nazi group who now works to disengage people from extremist hate movements. During the interview, Picciolini describes his process for getting individuals to leave hateful ideologies behind: He first listens to them and engages them on a personal level. Then, when they're ready, he takes them to meet people who they thought they had hated. He says, "I can tell you that every single time I've done that, I've never had a bad experience and everybody's always walked away different."

The power of (1) looking someone in the eye and (2) listening

From the transcript: "You know, this idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff — you should get over that quickly. The world, the world is messy. There are ambiguities. 00:00:16.440 —> 00:00:22.450 People who do really good stuff have flaws. Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the word – wrong verb or then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because, 'Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out.' I get on TV. Watch my show. Watch 'Grown-ish.' You know, that’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change."

From Matthew: "Both of my grandparents voted for Trump. That doesn't make them any less my grandparents, like I may disagree with them on some political things...We just have to talk to folks like they are people."

From the DDI homepage: "The Division of Diversity and Inclusion is introducing a programmatic theme for 2020: Democracy, Civility, and Freedom of Expression. Throughout the spring semester, students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members are invited to engage in conversations about and consider the importance of each element of the theme. Activities and events will include interactive workshops, inspiring performances, high-impact public speakers, and innovative conversational gatherings."

From their "What We Do" page: "Launched in 2016, Better Angels is a national citizens’ movement to bring liberals and conservatives together at the grassroots level — not to find centrist compromise, but to find one another as citizens. Through workshops, debates, and campus engagement, Better Angels helps Americans understand each other beyond stereotypes, form community alliances, and reduce the vitriol that poisons our civic culture."

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) talk about their participation in the reality TV show - Rival Survival, in which the two of them need to fight to survive on a deserted island.

Powerful conversations over a potluck dinner, centering on the question, "What needs healing here?"

This activity uses an episode of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as Purdue President Mitch Daniels' 2018 commencement speech, to discuss how current events and social media have contributed to tribalism and a decline in empathy.

This episode of Storytalking with Lakshya features George Simons, the creator of "Diversophy." The episode focuses on how stories can be used as vehicles for both good and evil and how religion, culture, history, can be understood as stories. 

Using an episode of the popular podcast Radiolab, this activity asks participants to discuss the process of naturalization and how individualism, collectivism, assimilation, and xenophobia factor into that process. They will also consider the idea of "belonging" to a place and outline their own sense of "belonging."

This activity uses an episode from NPR's Morning Edition to consider different perspectives on empathy and learn what the "dark side of empathy" means.

This activity is based on Jamil Zaki’s concept of the empathy gym, which he discusses on the podcasts Hidden Brain and Clear + Vivid. In those episodes, Zaki describes how he developed empathic skills as a child of divorced parents with two very different sets of values and priorities. He also discusses the positive and negative aspects of empathy in addition to providing some techniques that anyone could use to increase their level of empathy. This activity adapts one of those techniques, which he calls “Disagree Better,” and provides participants with tools for better understanding and empathizing with individuals who they may disagree with.

This activity uses an interview with acclaimed author Ann Patchett to help participants consider the importance of empathy within fiction, the relationship between empathy and culture, and how their empathy for fictional characters might translate to empathy for real people or situations.

During this activity, participants will critically analyze and interpret the music and lyrics of a culturally significant song, reflect on the significant role of cultural and societal critique, engage with a song via their worldview and the worldview of others, and understand the complexity of worldview elements important to members of their own and other cultures.

After completing this activity, participants will be able to understand the complexity of elements important to members of another culture in relation to its history, values, politics, communication styles, economy, or beliefs and practices; better formulate and articulate their own worldview, and recognize how these elements affect the formation of a person's worldview.

This activity requires participants to articulate a nuanced understanding of one domain of intercultural knowledge and competence from the AAC&U Intercultural Knowledge and Competence VALUE Rubric, list activities that will help them personally develop in that domain, and identify evidence that signals they have personally developed in that domain. 

This activity enables participants to define empathy, recognize how we develop empathy for fictional characters, discuss the relationship between empathy and culture, and articulate how empathy for fictional characters might translate to empathy for real people or situations.

This creativity-training activity was designed for a Spring Break study abroad program at Purdue University titled Amsterdam: Creative Thinking & Innovation in Collaborative Leadership. Specifically, it was designed to help travelling students their airport "down time" productively. It enables participants to enact connections between science, creativity, teamwork, and intercultural competence; take risks; embrace contradictions; as well as connect, synthesize, and transform.

This activity was created as part of a Purdue University Spring Break study abroad program, Amsterdam: Creative Thinking & Innovation in Collaborative Leadership. It allows participants to develop a better understanding of their stressors and how to deal with stress during a study abroad program.

This icebreaker activity helps participants to develop awareness of others as both individuals and cultural beings and build empathy and a sense of team identity by listening and sharing. It is best done with pairs who will be working together afterwards, for example: lab partners or project teammates.

This activity uses board games to help participants recognize different aspects of indirect communication styles, develop mental empathy and teamwork skills, and navigate cultural context.

This assessment measures participants' general sense of belongingness and loneliness. The iLEAD version of these two tools was created to assess visiting scholars' sense of loneliness and belongingness. The wording in this survey is specific to the university hosting this program. Edits will be necessary to adapt it to other contexts.