Meandering with purpose: A conversation with Director of Cross-Cultural Programs Julie Rowland

AKHF Director of Cross-Cultural Programs Julie Rowland comes from a family of teachers and works primarily with teachers in rural school districts. “My family always asks, what’s your presentation about? What are you teaching?,” she laughs. “But I’m not teaching; that’s not what I do.”

Julie, one of the lead facilitators of the Forum’s new public workshops, sees her role as creating and protecting spaces where groups can have the conversations that need to be had in order for them to achieve their goals, whether that’s building trust, getting meaningful community input on a project, or developing leadership skills. “I’m never going to be the most knowledgeable person in the room, and that’s so cool” she says, adding that she loves designing conversations where that knowledge can come to the surface. “I am always reminded of how many incredible people there are.”

Julie started at the Forum in fall 2022 with several years of experience facilitating conversations about topics like trauma-informed teaching and social and emotional learning. Looking back, she says facilitation was a natural extension of her early passions. “I was a theater person in school,” she laughs. “I’m comfortable around groups, I can remember things pretty well without materials. In college I studied political science and I was always thinking about what motivates people to participate in society. I’m really curious about why people are who they are.”

That curiosity is a natural fit for the role of workshop facilitator, where you have to balance the needs that emerge from individuals in the group with the overall purpose of the gathering. Julie, who has long recognized the necessity of gauging the comfort of people she facilitates, says the importance of a clear purpose is something she’s realized since joining the Forum. “I never really considered how having the purpose thread through everything helps you stay on track, helps participants understand why they’re there, and helps me as the facilitator rein myself in,” she says. “I like to meander! But if I’m always thinking about the purpose of the time together, it makes sure that wherever we go, we’re connected to why we’re together and what we need to be doing.”

One tool Julie loves to utilize as a facilitator is silence. “Quiet doesn’t scare me,” she says. “I lean right back into it. I say that a lot - ‘it’s been quiet for a minute and I’ll wait until someone says something’- and then someone does. That used to scare me a lot and I’d feel like I was doing something wrong. I think we’re conditioned that our best thoughts have to be spoken aloud but in my work I see so much value in self-reflection. We can learn a lot without talking.”

For many facilitators, it’s stressful imagining quiet moments in a group workshop, and they feel pressure to immediately fill that space. With experience has come confidence, Julie reflects, and the understanding that her role as a facilitator is to dig into tensions and awkward moments, rather than avoiding them. “Having that confidence and that connection to purpose gives me the freedom to lead people back where they’re most productive if they wander off,” she says. “It’s not about me or my ego - it’s about the conversation we’re having together.”

One of the facilitation goals Julie made last year was to get better at facilitating diverse groups that include students and Elders. “I actually flagged this to my supervisor,” she remembers. “I said I needed to work on making sure I’m creating spaces where every voice is valued and welcomed, while also making sure the group has the really important conversations that they need to. It can be really challenging to step in!”

Julie is also a strong designer of gatherings and conversations. “One of my new colleagues told me after an orientation last week, ‘That really flowed so well! It made sense how that was organized.’ And that was a great chance to talk about how there’s so much intention in how we structure things. It’s so thoughtful. The flow is not something that just happens; it’s by design.”

Julie is particularly excited about bringing the workshops directly connected to the work of her Cross-Cultural Programs team to new audiences. “There’s a rooted identity workshop that feels so connected to the place-based learning we support our educators to do,” she says. “It also feels like it’s going to lead to some really important, hard conversations for people trying to do work in communities where they aren’t necessarily from; to think about who they are, what gifts they have, what gifts their community has, and to see their community as a source of strengths. Often I see both audiences look at each other as barriers. I’m really excited about exploring how we can help shift that perspective.”