History of Sustained Dialogue
The process called “Sustained Dialogue” was first created by former U.S. diplomat Harold H. Saunders. In the spring of 1999, students at Princeton University worked with Saunders to create an organization based on the ideas of that process.
Two years after Princeton's success, two students at UVA, Priya Parker and Jacqueline Switzer, disturbed by race relations at the University, decided to do the same thing.
The first interest meeting occurred on November 12, 2001, followed by a 3-hour retreat the subsequent Sunday, and Sustained Dialogue at the University of Virginia was born.
We started off with a bang—with 40 students in attendance at the retreat, we were given a warm send-off by a small group of Princeton students and Hal Saunders himself—in the Rotunda Dome, no less. In late January 2002, the actual process was begun at the University.
After the success of Sustained Dialogue at Princeton University, UVA, and Dickinson College, the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue (IISD) formed the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network (SDCN) to help students spread SD to other colleges, univerisites and high schools across the country. Now at over a dozen schools across the country, the strength of the student network keeps growing.
Additionally, the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, based in Washington D.C. implements Sustained Dialogue in numerous communities both nationally and internationally.
For more information about the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, see www.sustaineddialogue.org