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About Our Work

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The Columbia Summer Institute for Dialogue and Civic Practice is housed at Columbia University’s Trust Collaboratory, one of the nation’s first research centers studying the social dynamics of trust. Trust underpins our social relations. Trust shapes whether people believe in institutions, participate in public life, and are willing to engage with others across difference. As a research center, the Trust Collaboratory leverages trans- and interdisciplinary formats to understand how building and repairing trust can support a thriving democracy in the 21st century.

People sitting at tables on the college campus in front of a large, classical-style building with columns and an inscription of famous philosophers and writers.

Led by faculty and researchers at the Trust Collaboratory, the Columbia Summer Institute for Dialogue and Civic Practice draws on the center’s Listening Tables program. Since its inception in the summer of 2024, the Listening Tables have hosted over 300 in-person dialogue sessions for more than 3,000 participants on the Columbia campus. We build on this expertise and on our world-class social science research on social trust to offer a true one-of-a-kind program for high school students.

Read more about the Listening Tables in our annual report.

Cover of a program report titled 'Listening Tables by Trust Collaboratory' with a photo of people sitting outdoors at tables, in front of a large building with columns, on a sunny day with a blue sky and clouds.

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Student Voices

When I came to Columbia, I felt an absence of spaces where student voices could meaningfully shape campus life and engage in dialogue about lived experience and community. The Listening Tables bridged this gap, creating a place for connection, reflection, and shared responsibility, and showing how intentional listening can strengthen both intellectual and communal life.

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Shannon Smith
Film & Business, CC’2026

The Listening Tables develop interpersonal capacities essential to contemporary academic and civic life: mutual recognition, listening for understanding, and constructive dialogue. Sitting at the Tables, we learn to listen while actively reshaping our thinking through sustained engagement with others, a practice that supports both resolution and healthy disagreement.

A young man with short, dark hair, light skin, and blue eyes, wearing a black zip-up sweater over a white shirt, looking directly at the camera with a light smile, against a plain gray background.

Zane Glassock
Cognitive Science, CC’2027

The library of Columbia University, a classical building with columns and engraved inscriptions, surrounded by trees and foliage, under a clear blue sky.

Click to learn more about the Trust Collaboratory’s pioneering research on trust and how to support our work.

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