February 11, 2026

Talking About Values Across Political Divides

“How can I be me without making it difficult for you to be you?” This question gets at the fundamental challenge of being in society together. We live in a contentious political world, and it’s difficult to talk about our deepest values and beliefs in safe, civil, and respectful ways. In 2021, the Pew Research Center found that nearly six in ten Americans felt that political conversations with those you disagree with are generally stressful and frustrating, as opposed to being interesting and informative. If we avoid such conversations, we lose opportunities to form a community with others that reflects our best selves. How can we learn to share our values in ways that bring us together rather than push us further apart?

Register for this free event. This conversation will take place at Building 5 in room 122.

12:30 p.m., Portland Community College Rock Creek Campus, Portland

February 12, 2026

Reflective Conversation Training (in-person)

During this in-person facilitation training, participants will:

• learn about facilitation and reflective conversation
• have an opportunity to practice new skills and techniques
• reflect on and share your own beliefs and assumptions and listen to beliefs, backgrounds, and experiences different than your own
• design and participate in reflective conversations and debriefs that analyze facilitation tools and choices.

This training will take place in the Oregon Humanities office in Portland (610 SW Alder St., Suite 1111) over the following days:

• Day 1: Thursday, February 12, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• Day 2: Friday, February 13, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

To register for the February in-person training, click here.

In-person trainings are limited to the first twelve to sixteen people to sign up. Over the course of two days, we’ll spend our time together talking in large and small groups, in small to mid-sized rooms. We’ll provide coffee and tea and a light lunch on both days.

9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Oregon Humanities, Portland

February 16, 2026

Why Print?

For the past several years, there’s been talk of a “print revival”—but did print ever really go away? Join local independent and nonprofit Portland publishers for a conversation about the role of print in a digital-first world. A group of editors and designers from local publications will discuss print’s unique ability to build community, elevate stories overlooked by platform and algorithm-driven media, and support a wide array of voices. The event will also consider challenges and potential solutions for keeping print publishing viable for local creators today. We'll come away with a deeper sense of why print persists not only as nostalgia, but as a still-revolutionary technology for imaginative and deeply human storytelling. The first half of this event will be dedicated to discussion and Q&A, and the other half will be for socializing and community building.

7:00 to 9:00 p.m., Mother Foucault's Bookshop, Portland

February 18, 2026

Talking About Values Across Political Divides

“How can I be me without making it difficult for you to be you?” This question gets at the fundamental challenge of being in society together. We live in a contentious political world, and it’s difficult to talk about our deepest values and beliefs in safe, civil, and respectful ways. In 2021, the Pew Research Center found that nearly six in ten Americans felt that political conversations with those you disagree with are generally stressful and frustrating, as opposed to being interesting and informative. If we avoid such conversations, we lose opportunities to form a community with others that reflects our best selves. How can we learn to share our values in ways that bring us together rather than push us further apart?

Register for this free event. This conversation will take place at Building 5 in room 122.

12:00 p.m., Portland Community College Rock Creek Campus, Portland

February 23, 2026

Democracy in Motion

The constitution grants congress the power to establish post roads and regulate interstate commerce. For 250 years, political decisions rooted in these powers have shaped how we travel from place to place and even who can travel from place to place. For some, transportation is a mundane issue: the vehicles and routes that are needed to get where they need to go are available and convenient, even if they might not work perfectly sometimes. For others, getting around can be difficult and exhausting, or even impossible. Some find joy in getting around and others face barriers. How does transportation reflect our democratic values? Does how we get around foster democracy? If not, could it be made so?

This conversation will take place in PCC Southeast Library in the second-floor commons area. Register for this free event.

2:00 p.m., Portland Community College Southeast Campus Library, Portland

February 24, 2026

Conversation Project: Are You Doing Community Wrong?

We all belong to many communities—that is, groups of people with common interests—depending on where we live, the work we do, how we spend our leisure time, political and religious beliefs, and so on. In some communities, finding agreement is easy; in others, especially those that represent many different experiences and points of view, members must work harder to find commonality. It may be easier to find a location for your next book-club meeting than to achieve consensus about a road project at your neighborhood association. In such contexts, are we “doing” community wrong? Are we celebrating diverse points of view and our common effort to find solutions together? If not, why not? What stops us from engaging in more diverse communities?

The conversation will be on the 2nd floor of the Student Union, room SU203 & 204 Register for this free event.

1:00 p.m., Portland Community College Cascade Campus, Portland

February 26, 2026

Softening Sharp Teeth: Getting Curious about Conflict

Interpersonal conflict and disagreement are part of being in relationship with others, but many of us fear conflict. Motivated by many factors, including cultural norms, concern for social consequences, and personal safety, many of us avoid it. What might we learn and how might we grow by making more room for conflict? What skills do we need to responsibly engage in conflict? How can shifting our relationship to conflict offer us new perspectives about ourselves and the groups we belong to? This community conversation is an opportunity to reflect on our relationships to interpersonal conflict outside of where we might most often encounter it, like the heated context of an argument at the dinner table or online. Facilitator Emily Squires will lead a judgement- and jargon-free discussion of what we mean when we say conflict, considering how interpersonal conflict shapes our lives and tools to use when experiencing it.

5:00 p.m., Southern Wasco County Library, Maupin

March 7, 2026

Screening: El Camino de los Pueblos Maya a Oregon / The Journey of Mayan Communities in Oregon

Join filmmakers Caty Lucas and filmmakers Elizabeth Lucas-Lucas for a screening of their new documentary "El Camino de los Pueblos Maya a Oregon," followed by a Q&A.

Over the past fifty years, hundreds of thousands of people of Maya descent have come to the United States, driven by genocide and economic deprivation. Some of them now live in Oregon. The size of the Maya population is hard to estimate, because it is so diverse: the Maya peoples comprise communities across Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras, who speak dozens of distinct languages. In this video, by Oregon Humanities Community Storytelling Fellow Caty Lucas, several Mayan Oregonians share their stories and why they came to the US.

3:30 p.m., Clinton Street Theater, Portland

March 7, 2026

Talking About Values Across Political Divides

“How can I be me without making it difficult for you to be you?” This question gets at the fundamental challenge of being in society together. We live in a contentious political world, and it’s difficult to talk about our deepest values and beliefs in safe, civil, and respectful ways. In 2021, the Pew Research Center found that nearly six in ten Americans felt that political conversations with those you disagree with are generally stressful and frustrating, as opposed to being interesting and informative. If we avoid such conversations, we lose opportunities to form a community with others that reflects our best selves. How can we learn to share our values in ways that bring us together rather than push us further apart?

Facilitator Lowell Greathouse is a retired United Methodist minister who served congregations in rural, suburban, and urban settings in Oregon, Idaho, and England from 1986 to 2019. In addition, he worked with community-based programs at Catholic Social Services in San Francisco, Community Action in Washington County, and United Way of the Columbia-Willamette. Lowell was born in Oregon and has family roots in the state that date back to the 1890s. He has been engaged in a variety of cross-cultural settings, including at the Cuernavaca Center for Intercultural Dialogue on Development (CCIDD) in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and is the author of the book Rediscovering the Spirit: From Political Brokenness to Spiritual Wholeness (Wipf and Stock, 2020).

3:00 p.m., Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, Corvallis

March 10, 2026

Starting Over: Exploring Experiences and Connections of Returning to Society

This conversation looks at what it feels like to “start over” after a hard season in life. For some people, that means coming home after jail or prison. For others, it might be rehab, a long absence from school, or just a really tough stretch where life fell apart for a while. We’ll read a poem written from the point of view of someone “living with a felony,” talk in groups, and think about how we treat people who are trying to rebuild their lives. This isn’t about judging anyone. It’s about understanding, listening, and seeing the human being behind the label.

Register for this free online conversation.

3:00 p.m., Virtual Event, statewide