Many Religions, One Community: Lessons from Islamic Spain for Today’s World

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The High Stakes of Stakeholder Engagement: A Plea for Careful Planning from Public Agenda

Alison Kadlec
Feb 1, 2012

This post was written for the 20 community colleges participating in Completion by Design, a five-year Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative that aims to significantly increase completion rates for low-income students under 26. As a “National Assistance partner” for Completion by Design, Public Agenda provides direct assistance to the colleges to help them build capacity for solutions-oriented dialogue among faculty, staff and administration. Here, Public Agenda's Alison Kadlec discusses best practices for authentic internal stakeholder engagement. While the post is geared toward Completion by Design planning teams, the principles are useful for any authentic engagement process.

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You Can't Do It Alone: A New Guide to Creating Sustainable Change in Education Reform

Allison Rizzolo
Jan 24, 2012

Far too often, throughout our work in the education field, we've seen even the most earnest and promising ideas from experts and reformers for improving schools and ramping up student learning met with confusion, anxiety or even anger from teachers, parents, students or community members.

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Many Religions, One Community: Lessons from Islamic Spain for Today’s World

We live today in an increasingly globalized society where different cultures and faiths are brought into closer contact than ever before. This situation presents both extraordinary possibilities and profound challenges. How can people of different cultures and faiths live together in peace and prosperity in a shared society? Are tensions between different faiths and cultures inevitable?

Designed for use with the documentary film Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain from Unity Productions Foundation about the achievements and ultimate failures of a centuries-long period when Muslims, Christians, and Jews coexisted, this Choicework Discussion Starter offers three contrasting views of the lessons that can be drawn from this historical period and its implications for religious pluralism today.

For more information about this discussion guide, film, or to get more information about how to host a film screening and community dialogue, visit http://www.20000dialogues.org/mroc

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