President’s Reflective Dialogue Fellows Launched with Immersive Retreat at UW’s Neltje Center

Eight campus leaders began their yearlong work as President’s Reflective Dialogue Fellows over the weekend of Sept. 5 at the University of Wyoming’s Neltje Center for Excellence in Creativity and the Arts.

The immersive weekend enabled the Fellows to discuss and practice creating thoughtfully tended environments where presence, trust and engaged collaboration can thrive. The Fellows will meet regularly throughout the 2025-26 academic year.

“I am grateful to the leaders who are committing their time and energy to this important work. The ability to engage in thoughtful, respectful and constructive dialogue is at the heart of a vibrant university community -- and is essential for preparing our students to thrive in an increasingly complex world,” UW President Ed Seidel says. “This fellowship embodies our vision of UW as a place where curiosity, collaboration and free expression are not only valued, but actively cultivated.”

The eight Fellows are led by Janel Seeley, director of UW’s Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning and a certified reflective dialogue trainer.

 

Seeley pitched the idea for a yearlong dialogue opportunity for campus leaders to Martha McCaughey, who helps bridge Seidel’s vision for the Free Expression, Intellectual Freedom and Constructive Dialogue Initiative with practical follow-through by faculty, staff and students.

 

“Working with this group of leaders on campus was truly inspirational,” Seeley says of the kickoff weekend. “It is clear we have thoughtful, engaged and caring leadership at UW, and I can't wait to see how ideas develop for creating a more relationship-rich campus through the use of reflective dialogue and collaboration.”

 

One of the Fellows is Rochelle Green, director of organizational leadership at UW-Casper, a program that recently proposed starting a new undergraduate certificate in constructive dialogue. If approved, the certificate would begin in fall 2026.

 

“I am looking forward to the honor of bringing reflective dialogue practice to both our campuses, but also to our students through the proposed constructive dialogue certificate,” Green says. “We are in a time, more than ever, that we need to be able to have respectful discourse and dialogue.”