America in 2026 is dangerously low on trust; talking with strangers has never felt so fraught. This course, series is led by Michael Rohd, a faculty member at University of Montana offered on June 11-13) on the University of Utah Campus invites you to strengthen your capacity to hold space for trust, dialogue, and change. Whether you are starting out as a facilitator or have been leading conversations and group process for years, this course equips you with tools to design and shape experience, help groups productively accomplish goals, and move through difficult moments when they arise.
This workshop is open to the public and made for people who facilitate, teach, lead, direct, guide or host in classroom, arts, public engagement, community meeting, organizational, municipal or team contexts. If you do the work of facilitating groups and projects, of imagining possibility, you are making opportunities for connection, and you are stewarding hope. You are doing the hard work of building trust.
The course is structured as six sequential three-hour workshops that focus on curiosity, deep listening, boundary setting, the transformative power of understanding context and purpose, and specific strategies for navigating the challenges your participants will encounter within themselves, and with each other.
Building Trust, Imagining Futures
Facilitation workshop with Michael Rohd
June 11-13, 2026
Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building (SFEBB) 5160 A & B
$200
Open to the public
This event is co-hosted by the University of Utah Department of Theatre and Spy Hop.
A bit more about Michael:
Michael Rohd is a theatre maker, process designer, and facilitator who co-founded Sojourn Theatre, serving as its artistic director for 23 years, and co-creating over thirty original productions during that time. He’s premiered new work with partners that include: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Steppenwolf Theatre, Ping Chong and Company, House of World Culture in Berlin and Turku Festival in Finland. In addition to his production work, for 35 years he’s been designing and facilitating process around complex public issues across the nation, supporting and training arts, municipal, and non-profit staff in developing effective community programs, convenings, and public engagement work. He founded/led Hope Is Vital (theatre-based HIV Prevention work in DC and nationwide in the ‘90s) and co-founded/co-led Center for Performance and Civic Practice (artist collective consulting on institutional and system change work nationwide 2012- 2024). He recently served four years as Civic Collaborations Director with One Nation One Project, a national arts and health initiative, and he is a process-designer and facilitation trainer for national Veteran led bridge-building organization More Perfect Union. He is author of the book Theatre for Community, Conflict and Dialogue (Heinemann Press). In 2022, he founded Co-Lab for Civic Imagination at University of Montana where, as a tenured Professor ,he serves as Co-Lab Director and as a University-Wide System Dramaturg/Artist-in-Residence. His most recent work includes: State of Mind, a play & community residency about behavioral health that has, over the last 18 months, toured to 30 rural Montana communities and is now launching a national initiative; and facilitation design/training for The Mayor of New York City’s Office of Civic Engagement.
General
Michael is a theatre-maker, educator, process designer, writer and facilitator. His research and creative practice is focused on civic imagination. He has a 30+ year history of projects across sectors bringing cultural activity to the work of public engagement, community planning and cross-sector coalition building.
Universities
Michael has worked in and around universities for over 30 years, leading workshops, conducting artist residencies and helping institutions design new programs and initiatives. Hosts have included University of Maryland, Duke University, UCLA, New York University, Louisiana State University, Harvard University, University of Michigan, University of Georgia/Athens & University of Texas Austin. He has held tenured faculty positions at Northwestern University and Arizona State University, and currently leads a Lab for Civic Imagination at University of Montana, where as a tenured Professor he also serves as a campus wide process designer and facilitator.
Public Engagement
Michael has been a leader in innovative public engagement approaches since he founded a public health program in 1992 that connected government and health agencies to youth in urban, rural and suburban communities around the nation and built arts-based processes that brought youth and community leaders into meaningful dialogue about local issues. He has since designed, led and/or supported through training many public engagement projects and initiatives, with partners which include Chicago Parks and Recreation, Georgetown University, City of Portland Oregon, Nebraska Department of Health, Montana Arts Council, State of Kansas Department of Commerce, Virginia Tech University, Springboard for the Arts, ArtPlace America, NYC’s Office of Mass Engagement and Arizona Commission for the Arts. Among many ongoing public engagement projects, he currently designs process and facilitation for More Perfect Union, a Veteran’s led national service project and cross-partisan bridge-building organization.
Arts/Theatre
In addition to co-founding and leading Sojourn Theatre for 23 years, Michael’s been a leader and adviser on devised theatre, community engagement, civic practice and education in the arts sector for 30 years, leading projects or designing programs at/for partners that include: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Steppenwolf Theatre, Wooly Mammoth Theatre, La Mama NYC, National Endowment for the Arts, Oregon Arts Council, Americans for the Arts, Goodman Theater, Theater Communications Group, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Old Globe (San Diego), MetroArts Nashville, ArtPlace America, Honolulu Theater for Youth, Alliance Theatre (Atlanta), Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Seattle Repertory Theater, Lincoln Center, and Opera America.