CASE 05 / COMMUNITY + POWER + BELONGING

Creating Spaces for Voice, Accountability & Healing

Community practice across town halls, task force work, and healing circles

Who needs to speak, and who needs to listen?

CONTEXT + PURPOSE

Participation changes when power, accountability, rest, and healing shape the room.

This case brings together the POPCU Illinois Theatre Town Hall, UIUC Theatre EDI Task Force work, and Collective Healing Circles.

The Town Hall emphasized accountability. The Healing Circles emphasized rest, processing, community, and healing.

EVIDENCE + ARTIFACTS

An archive of community practice.

EVIDENCE + ARTIFACTS

Voices from the room.

FACILITATION COMPETENCIES

What the work asks of the room.

PURPOSED

INCLUSIVE

ADAPTIVE

LOOKING BACK, DESIGNING FORWARD

Designing participation with power in mind.

WHAT I UNDERSTAND NOW

An invitation to speak is not the same thing as safety to speak. Centering students and alumni during the Town Hall was an early attempt to redistribute participation according to power rather than simply giving everyone equal airtime. Looking back, I see this as an early form of pre-session assessment: listening before designing the room and using participant input to help shape what the conversation needed to hold.

WHAT I WOULD PRESERVE

The Town Hall moved from voice to witness, accountability, and action. Faculty and departmental leaders were asked to listen during the student and alumni panel, while students and alumni could affirm, connect with, or add to what they heard through the chat.

WHAT I WOULD CHANGE

We cannot facilitate power away. We can design conditions where power has less control over whose voice gets heard. I would strengthen assessment and flexibility by making pre-event survey patterns more visible during the experience, creating additional opportunities for anonymous digital input, individual reflection, smaller-group participation, clearer commitments, follow-up, and accountability after the event.

WHAT I’M PRACTICING NEXT

Accountability and healing need different containers. Accountability requires voice, witness, and action. Healing requires safety, connection, processing, and rest. 2020 Latrel knew that people needed a different kind of room. 2026 Latrel can more precisely ask what this particular room requires, and what conditions, structures, power dynamics, and facilitation choices can make it possible.

RETURN TO PRACTICE

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