From Incivility to Resolution

Session Overview

This interactive workshop equips higher education HR professionals with frameworks and tools to address the rising incivility, burnout, and polarization shaping today’s campus workplaces. Participants will explore conflict trends unique to higher education, practice resolution strategies through realistic scenarios, and leave with concrete approaches they can apply immediately to support faculty, staff, and student employees.

Venue

Duquesne University - Student Union Building, Africa Room

About our Trainers

Conflict & Culture helps organizations navigate workplace conflict with clarity, confidence, and compassion. Founded by Meghan Gorman, JD, SHRM-SCP, a former Army JAG officer and seasoned internal investigator, Conflict & Culture services are grounded in legal precision and real-world HR expertise.

Meghan has conducted hundreds of investigations for institutions such as the University of Southern California, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and PNC Financial Services. She brings extensive Title IX and Title VII experience, including serving as a hearing officer for sexual misconduct cases. Her work spans complex employee relations, discrimination and harassment claims, and high-profile leadership matters, always with a practical, people-centered approach that bridges HR, legal risk, and organizational culture. She also developed a mediation program for a highly competitive higher education institution, further demonstrating her ability to create practical conflict resolution frameworks that strengthen campus culture.

Contact

Meghan A. Gorman

Mediator | Investigator | HR Consultant

(724) 493-8464 | bWVnaGFuIHwgY29uZmxpY3RhbmRjdWx0dXJlICEgY29t

www.conflictandculture.com

Info: Check - in for attendees and continental breakfast

Info: • Conflict trends on campus: generational divides, politicization of identity, hybrid/remote disputes, faculty

governance tensions

• Root causes of workplace incivility and escalation in academic environments

• Case study discussion: “When values collide in a department meeting”

Info: • Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) – application to higher ed leadership teams

• Mediation principles and “early intervention” techniques tailored to campus dynamics

• Investigations vs. mediation: when each is appropriate in Title IX/employee relations contexts

• Roleplay: reframing inflammatory language into neutral dialogue

Info: • Small-group exercises:

o Scenario 1: Faculty vs. administration over workload

o Scenario 2: Staff conflict rooted in perceived inequities in hybrid schedules

o Scenario 3: Graduate assistant grievance with supervisor

• Aftercare: how to rebuild trust and restore culture after conflict resolution

• Personal action plan: identifying one conflict trend on your campus and three steps to address it this semester

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