Revealing the power of dialogue

A group of individuals gathered around a Yemeni artist’s screen installation at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn. The piece functioned as a time capsule, preserving fragments of a homeland carried in memory. Three days later, that same group stood beside a Holocaust-era boxcar at the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, a tangible artifact compelling history out of the abstract.

This juxtaposition of location lies at the heart of Synergy Across Group Experiences, or SAGE, a three-day program launched by Student Affairs scholar-practitioners at Michigan State University in fall 2024. The program is housed under the Inclusive Access and Belonging department in the Student Affairs’ MOSAIC Center for Education and Outreach. 

“SAGE is intended to serve as a dynamic, interdisciplinary cocurricular program that empowers students to grow through meaningful connection and self-discovery,” said Charlie Liu, director of MOSAIC. “By centering lived experiences and fostering empathy through powerful practices like personal storytelling, the program connects people and inspires growth.”

Building bridges through structured dialogue 

SAGE brings together students to explore religious, spiritual and secular identities through structured museum visits and dialogue sessions. The program is an Institutional Review Board–approved study — led by principal investigator and Assistant Vice President for Inclusive Access and Belonging Genyne Royal — and part of a larger intergroup dialogue initiative at MSU, built on decades of research showing that meaningful relationships across differences change how people see the world.

The October cohort included undergraduates and graduate students, working professionals continuing their education, student parents, faculty and alums. The group included individuals who identified themselves as deeply religious, others as spiritual or secular. The program’s structure unfolds over consecutive days that include vulnerability exercises on campus, followed by separate museum visits with dialogue sessions after each experience.

Connecting through personal artifacts 

On the first day, participants shared personal artifacts connected to their identities: a prayer book, a photograph of a family in another country, a rock from a meaningful place. The aim was to learn how to navigate the world with their identities intact and to build genuine human connections.

Arab American National Museum: Hospitality and heritage

The following day, at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, the group gathered around a table as Lesly Morales, one of the program’s facilitators, read from Lebanese American Kahlil Gibran’s collection of poetry, “The Prophet.” “Welcome now, you are with family,” Morales read. The team shared a meal after the tour, reflecting the hospitality customs they had encountered during the visit.

Inside, the guide explained that Arab tradition welcomes guests with rose water for three days without question. Moving through the 20-year-old museum, the guide traced Arab identity across 22 countries and two continents, pointing to matriarchal societies in Northern Africa and pre-Arab languages, urging recognition of individual identities rather than colonial generalizations. At the Islamic marriage contracts display, participants learned that women hold the right to consent, that their responsibility to themselves comes first, which serves as a form of security in male-dominated societies.

Zekelman Holocaust Center: Memory and preservation

On the last day of the program, the cohort toured the Zekelman Holocaust Center, the first freestanding Holocaust Museum in the United States, founded in 1984 by Michigan Holocaust survivors. There, they encountered a different mode of preservation. Michael Singler, an undergraduate anthropology student, paused at the Wall of Remembrance to point out African victims among the names, prompting conversation about how genocide transcends geography and targets any group deemed “other.” 

Another exhibit immersed the participants in life prior to the Holocaust: audio recordings of children laughing, families celebrating. “We can live with both joy and pain simultaneously,” Morales reflected during the dialogue session. “That’s what makes life beautiful.”

The guide explained how antisemitism accumulated over two millennia, how Germany’s defeat in World War I created conditions for scapegoating and how children’s books like “The Poisonous Mushroom” normalized prejudice from the earliest ages. Holocaust survivor Barbara Schechter-Cohen, who was present as a volunteer speaking to visitors, shared her story. The fact that she was hidden as a child during the second world war greatly moved the group. What resonated most wasn’t the catalog of atrocities she had witnessed but her choice to respond with hope rather than bitterness.

Patterns across contexts 

By visiting both museums within the same week, patterns were observed. The group reflected on the dehumanization that precedes violence, the mechanics of propaganda, how communities survive by preserving stories as well as the cost of silence. SAGE does not claim all situations are equivalent, but by understanding how hatred operates, we can create a capacity for recognition that can transcend history.

Measuring impact and looking forward 

The SAGE program measures learning outcomes, including awareness of social identities, intergroup understanding, strategies for intervention and capacity to advance equity and justice. Early data suggests efficacy. Participants report increased engagement, deeper awareness of their social identities and concrete action plans to foster dialogue in their communities.

In the final dialogue session, participants discussed how they would carry the experience forward. One student described the discomfort of confronting personal biases, a discomfort that signaled something real was happening. What SAGE provided was not a solution to conflicts but a framework for understanding how hatred functions across contexts and cultures. The recognition of dehumanization patterns, whether targeting Jewish communities, Arab communities or any other group, becomes the first step toward interrupting those patterns.

While still in its pilot phase, SAGE will continue with new cohorts each semester and there are plans to broaden the intersections of identities the program explores. By learning both histories, by sitting with the pain of different communities, by seeing how persecution echoes across time and place, the group came away with a commitment to understanding rather than choosing a side. Conflicts are very much a reality, but genuine understanding requires holding space for multiple truths and complex histories that span generations. Programs like SAGE teach us how to stay human while navigating these complexities. 

For information about participating in future cohorts, email Charlie Liu at mosaic@msu.edu. The next program is planned for Feb. 6–8, 2026.

Programs like SAGE remind us that dialogue can transform how we see one another — and ourselves. If you believe in the power of dialogue to build bridges, join us to sustain and grow programs like SAGE with a gift to the MOSAIC Center for Education and Outreach.

Photographs by Aditi Gonuguntala