Posts by: Sarah Sunu

When Conflict Shows Up What do you do when conflict crops up? Maybe you’re in a meeting making a decision, and things get heated. Or maybe you’re talking with a colleague or neighbor and all of sudden, they say something you deeply disagree with. Or perhaps it’s the classic holiday dinner example, where everyone avoids certain topics, so that you can all g...

Expressing perspectives, opinions or even recommendations about the implications of your science can be a bit uncomfortable, even scary in politically charged times like we are in now. But if you want your science to be relevant and useful, you need to make sure it gets out of pages of peer-reviewed journals or organization reports and into real-world discussions. ...

The COMPASS team has led a lot of workshops over the years—600 and counting! And as you might expect, during those workshops we get plenty of questions, including some that come up over and over. One of those regularly repeating questions: how to handle needing to communicate with multiple audiences, at the same time. Like a lot of questions about communication,...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that constructive feedback is valuable for learning and improving. At COMPASS, we think it’s so important that it’s a core part of our workshops. But like a lot of things, it's not always easy to know how to give good feedback.  That’s why, before we ask people to give each other feedback, we take some time to talk a...

Science can have the greatest impact in the world when scientists work in partnership with community leaders and policymakers - and those partnerships require effective, inclusive science communication. But what characterizes inclusive science communication, and who is practicing it?  Hosted by the University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute and organized ...