Adan Hussain
Director, Dialogue Michigan
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Adan Hussain is the Dialogue Michigan program director at The Program on Intergroup Relations. Adan comes to Dialogue Michigan and the Program on Intergroup Relations from his time as the director of cohort-based scholarship programs where he served the Kessler Scholars and U.P. Scholars Programs. Prior to the Kessler and U.P. Scholars communities, Adan led first-generation initiatives that impacted students, staff, and faculty across the University of Michigan. Adan was a first-generation college student and was part of a cohort-based scholarship program when he attended undergraduate school at Colby College. He served as a facilitator for Campus Conversations on Race and went on to lead intervention-based dialogue programming at The Ohio State University. Keep reading
Kelly E. Maxwell, PhD
Senior Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Education and Engagement, U-M LSA
Board Chair, Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center
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As senior assistant dean, Kelly is responsible for implementing and coordinating undergraduate initiatives in the “engagement” portfolio. Specifically she works with the Center for Global Intercultural Study, English Language Institute, the Program on Intergroup Relations, the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, the Language Resource Center, the Kessler Scholars Program, and three Michigan Learning Communities: the Global Scholars Program, the Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts, and the Michigan Community Scholars Program. Kelly serves on the board of the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center. Keep reading
Donna Rich Kaplowitz, PhD
Senior Director for Campus Dialogue Education, The Program on Intergroup Relations
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Donna serves as the Director of the Difficult Dialogues Meet the Moment Initiative. She is also the Senior Director of Campus Dialogue Education, which oversees Dialogue Michigan and the Program on Intergroup Relations. Donna’s research and writing focus on facilitation strategies, particularly as they related to near-peer facilitation and the intersection of college student facilitators and high school students. Her most recent books include: co-editor with Stephanie Hicks Facilitating Transformational Dialogues: Creating Socially Just Communities (2024); and co-author with Shayla Reese Griffin and Sheri Seyka, Race Dialogues: A Facilitator’s Guide to Tackling the Elephant in the Classroom.TCP 2019). In her free time, Donna loves playing with her grandkids, walking along the shores of any body of water, and painting.
Sophie Phillips
Student Coordinator, Difficult Dialogues Meet the Moment Initiative
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Sophie is a senior majoring in Political Science and French with a minor in Intergroup Relations and a joint certificate in Community Action and Social Change. Sophie has been involved with IGR since her freshman year, and has been a dialogue participant since the age of eight. In addition to her work with Meet the Moment, she currently serves as Program Coordinator in CommonGround. Previously, Sophie has served as a Workshop Facilitator and Program Assistant in CommonGround and has facilitated several ALA courses as well as Summer Youth Dialogues and the Youth Social Justice Fellows Program. Sophie is passionate about social justice and dialogue and looks forward to a career that helps develop the field of Intergroup Relations.
Dialogue Michigan Steering Committee
The Dialogue Michigan Steering Committee is a cross-functional group of faculty and staff who advise and support the direction of the Dialogue Michigan program. Committee members come from Organizational Learning, the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, Program on Intergroup Relations, Michigan Medicine, Office of Student Conflict Resolution, Wolverine Pathways, and the Office of the Provost.
