Dr. Marisa Rinkus, the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, and the Power of Collaboration Artwork

Community Possibilities

Welcome to Community Possibilities ®! This In this podcast, I will be joined by community leaders, doing the hard work of social change. We will talk about root causes and dig deep to understand social and health inequities. Let’s imagine all of the possibilities if we learn how to talk to each other, not at each other.

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Community Possibilities

Dr. Marisa Rinkus, the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, and the Power of Collaboration

March 23, 2022 • Ann Price • Season 1 • Episode 22

0:00 | 57:43

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I started this podcast because I wanted to have hard conversations. So when I saw the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) Center post on LinkedIn, I knew I wanted to learn more. In this episode, Dr. Marisa Rinkus joins us to talk about her work at the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) Center at Michigan State University.

Marisa's early experience with the Peace Corps working in small communities in Guatemala and then later, with the Wildlife Foundation, prepared her for her work today. Marisa's worked to understand community needs. She learned she was a "connector" and enjoyed serving as a resource for communities. Marisa learned that there is often disconnect between resource managers or policy makers and communities often because of the assumptions we make about others.

Now, as an Associate Director of TDI, Marisa helps teams, particularly research teams, to be more effective and function more collaboratively. TDI works with groups who are working towards a common goal by conducting workshops and strategy sessions. Based in philosophy, the team is multidimensional and brings that perspective to their work through the science of team science.

The aim of TDI workshops are to enhance:

Cross team communication and collaboration through dialogue
Two-way communication
The identification of root causes of problems

Workshop participants learn that they are more alike than different. They learn to deal with assumptions and to recognize "unacknowledged differences" through perspective taking and getting curious. Workshops help build individuals' and groups' capacity to be open and communicate more effectively.

We need to do the hard work of imagining things differently. Focusing on tasks alone won't get us to community change.

Links:
The Toolbox Dialogue and Initiative
Toolbox Dialogue Book
twitter.com/msutoolbox

Bio
Marisa Rinkus is an Associate Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) Center at Michigan State University. Her work involves designing and facilitating Toolbox Dialogue Initiative workshops and studying the impact of structured dialogue on cross-disciplinary communication and collaboration. As a lead facilitator and researcher with the TDI since January of 2017, she has led team science related research and client-based projects for the National Science Foundation and multiple universities in the US. She was also a contributor to the recently published book, The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative: The Power of Cross-Disciplinary Practice. Marisa was the recipient of a Fulbright grant to Brazil for her doctoral research which examined how gender, attitudes, and agency influence community participation in sea turtle conservation. Her research has been published in the International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Human Ecology, Human Dimensions of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oryx, Society & Natural Resources, and Water Policy. Prior to joining academia, Marisa worked with non-profit and government organizations in the US and internationally on conservation and development issues, including 2 years of service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala and 5 years with the National Wildlife Federation. She holds a PhD and an MS in Human Dimensions of Fisheries and Wildlife with specializations in International Development and Gender, Justice, and Environmental Change from Michigan State University, and a BS in Wildlife Science from Purdue University.

Community Possibilities is produced by Zach Price
Music by Zach Price
zachpricet@gmail.com

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· Help you create a strategic plan that doesn’t stress you and your group out, doesn’t take all year to design, and is actionable.

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Music by Zach Price: Zachpricet@gmail.com