Francie Kendall has a way of getting people to talk.
Her comfortable and direct personality can get a room full of strangers to engage in conversations dealing with issues that they may have only previously thought about to themselves. Issues dealing with the Sept. 11 attacks were no exception last Thursday.
As part of a three-day bias awareness training conference, Kendall gave a keynote address last Thursday titled “Conversations Across Differences: Developing Dialogue Skills for Difficult Conversations.”
Kendall, a national consultant based in San Francisco, travels across the nation working with “organizations to help them become more hospitable in particular to people of color and women.” She serves as a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator.
During the conference, Kendall’s goals were to help participants achieve a new level of bias awareness, skills in neutrality and objective decision-making, among other things.
The presentation on Thursday dealt primarily with expanding comfort zones in difficult conversations by discussing issues relating to the events of Sept. 11.
“My goals were to be clear to the audience about where I was and to provide a place where people can say what they want,” Kendall said.
She said Americans have arrived at a point where it is not OK to express doubt publicly. The events of Sept. 11 left many doubts and questions in the minds of members of the audience. On Thursday, many were able to express their opinions freely.
Among the audience’s concerns dealt with citizens of the United States pointing fingers and wanting to “root out” people of certain ethnic backgrounds just because of one person committing an act of terrorism against the country. After the attacks, some people in the country wanted to eliminate people of Arab descent or even just citizens with dark-colored skin. The recent killing of a driver on a Greyhound bus by a Croatian led to the same feelings. Kendall even referred back to the Japanese internment camps in America during World War II.
“Why did we not say that with Timothy McVeigh? People were not going about saying that we need to get rid of all blue-eyed, blond hair white males,” Kendall said.
Her views were not intended to be anti-patriotic; she was just facilitating the discussion by pointing out that in a time of crisis, patriotism can turn to racism.
Catherine Alexandra, a mediator/facilitator for Mediation, Facilitation and Focus Groups in Vermillion, is a member of the Board of South Dakota Mediation Association. She, along with Dean Spader, dean of the criminal justice department, and Cindy Bakke brought Kendall to USD.
“Francie is skilled in creating an environment where dialog can occur and people can say ideas that they couldn’t say in another setting.”
USD graduate student John Owot said he likes to share conversations with diverse people, which is what appealed to him about Kendall’s presentation.
“I thought she was pretty good,” Owot said. “She was open about issues that people don’t talk about all the time. Touchy issues that we can’t talk about at other forums and in other conversations.”
Kendall has been brought to USD before; first by the Department of Clinical Psychology and more recently by Residential Life.
“I really love it here. It is a wonderful community and I always feel welcomed here,” she said.
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