Margaret Anderson

Margaret Anderson

Contact

andemarg@sonoma.edu

Margaret Anderson is the acting director of the Hutchins Dialogue Center (HDC), designed as an institutional home for dialogue at Sonoma State University. Through the HDC, facilitation of dialogue, design of curriculum, and training for faculty, staff and students can occur across all sectors and in many academic and community contexts.

Margaret has taught for eighteen years in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at Sonoma State and taught for eight years in the Freshman Year Experience Program. She has also organized activities in coordination with the Associated Students for pre- and post-dialogue discussions around complex issues and topics such as race, gender, politics, and sexuality via extracurricular events, lectures, films and workshops. In addition to her work as director of HDC and as a lecturer, she has served as the director of the Touchstones Discussion Group project and has trained over 1200 teachers in the Avid program to implement weekly dialogue seminars in public schools. Margaret has facilitated discussions in a variety of settings, including prisons, schools, and businesses and she has engaged in numerous community and intergenerational dialogues.

In her work, Margaret has witnessed how engaging in a model of dialogue can greatly improve human relationships and learning; allowing people with differing values and perspectives to find common ground by furthering their understanding of themselves and others.