South Dakota Mines will host “Black Hills Talks” at 5 p.m. on Monday,
March 27, in the Surbeck Center on the university campus.
South Dakota
Mines will host “Black
Hills Talks” at 5 p.m. on Monday, March 27, in the Surbeck Center on the
university campus. The event is being organized by Samantha Harkin, the
assistant director of Student Engagement at Mines, as part of her work with the
Elevate Leadership Institute.
“Black Hills
Talks is a chance for all to come together in our community to identify issues
and brainstorm solutions across a variety of perspectives,” says Harkin.
Participants
will be put into small groups and led by a semi-structured dialogue model that
promotes respect between all parties. The goal of the event is to get know
issues fellow community members are facing through different perspectives and
then brainstorm solutions together.
Preregistration for the event is required
at this link. Harkin
decided to take up the effort as a way to improve local dialogue around
solutions to common issues faced in the community.
“I had heard
about the ‘America Talks’ model and its successes at bringing people together
online, and I think now more than ever people need to be able to connect in
person. I noticed that what is said online behind a screen is often not what a
person thinks, and that when you actively listen to someone else, you find they
have the same types of worries as you do, even if their solution is different,”
says Harkin. “I also wanted to be a person that could cultivate real solutions
and not just perpetuate the problems over and over.”
Harkin says the solutions that percolate up from the
group will be then shared with local community leaders.
“My
goal for the event is connection, but my hope for it is concrete solutions that
can be brought to our area’s representatives,” says Harkin.