But several high-profile incidents on the Michigan campus — a hotbed for racial tension and student activism in the 1980s — steered Nagda toward social work and psychology and the development of a tool to examine such divisive issues in an honest, informed and powerful way. That approach, intergroup dialogues, formed a prototype for the Intergroup Dialogue, Education and Action, or IDEA, Center that he started on the UW campus in 1996.

So instead of healing physical ailments, Nagda focused on healing social divides.

His intergroup dialogue approach was so effective that it quickly became a core requirement for undergraduates in the School of Social Work and is a strong component in the master's degree program as well. It has since spread to other UW entities, including the College of Arts and Sciences, and last year Nagda traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, to introduce the process to colleagues at the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, which has since adopted the method as a core pedagogy for its peace-building programs. The IDEA Center is also leading a national research project to explore how intergroup dialogues affect student learning.

That string of accomplishments has culminated in the center's latest accolade: being named recipient of the Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence.

The award is well deserved, said Edwina Uehara, dean of the School of Social Work.

"The IDEA program is perhaps the most remarkable educational innovation that we have undertaken," she said. "Remarkable not only in its ambitious embrace of some of the most challenging issues of our time, but also in its depth, expanse and demonstrable effectiveness."

The dialogues themselves — the first offering in the program's series of courses — are face-to-face meetings of students from different backgrounds to explore issues of diversity, equality and justice. Trained peer facilitators who have completed advanced courses in the program operate within that framework to create conditions in which class members' own experiences and thinking become part of the teaching and learning process. The effect, according to participants, is extraordinarily powerful.

"This course made me a different person, a better person who understood and viewed herself and the world around her in a more complete and multicultural way," said Christine Parker, a 2003 bachelor's graduate in social work.

After graduating, Parker said, she knew she wanted to work in a diverse environment where she could put the skills she developed in the IDEA program to use. She currently works with the YMCA Community Learning Center program at Aki Kurose Middle School in South Seattle, a school where more than 90 percent of the pupils are students of color, many living below the poverty line.

"I am so much more effective at my job because I am able to communicate with the people I work with," Parker said. "I can understand many of the issues they face and I am a social change agent for them. I use my IDEA skills every day in my work and I am forever grateful for this course."

Genevieve Caruncho called her experience with the program "life altering."

As an undergraduate in social work and public health, Caruncho participated first as a student, then as a student facilitator. With the support of a Mary Gates Leadership Grant, she assisted in curriculum development and facilitator training. She is now preparing to graduate with a master's degree in public administration from New York University.

"I can sincerely say that I would not be here without intergroup dialogue," she said.

For Nagda, such comments are gratifying.

"We are engaged in a different kind of learning — not shouting, whispering or being silent, but speaking our truths, being heard by others and listening to others in exploring difficult issues of inequality, such as racism, sexism, and heterosexism."

There is a generative power inherent in the process because the difficult dialogue is coupled with action, he added, "so that we can make a sustained difference in the world."

He likes to see that students get as much from the program as he does.

It gives me life," he said. "We never stop learning."