Workshops
Dr. Afia Ofori-Mensa is an innovative facilitator whose approach to designing and teaching workshops is grounded in Curious Conversations, (inter)personal reflection, and storytelling.
All listed workshops are available to request individually or in curated groupings. If you would like to arrange a workshop, or a series of workshops, in one or more of the categories below – or if you would like to commission a workshop in another content area not listed here – please contact Dr. Ofori-Mensa.
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Recently Facilitated at Princeton University
From a young age, we are directed to think about our futures in terms of the question, “What do you want to be?” This workshop encourages participants to reframe their thinking through the question, “What do you want to do?” In a series of guided reflection exercises, participants articulate their greatest joys, strengths, and desires and then pair up to share their reflections. Before the end of the workshop, participants synthesize those reflections into a small collection of concise life purpose statements that they can use in cover letters, interviews, academic application materials, and as a tool for assessing alignment between their decision-making and their values. Ultimately, participants learn to articulate their future purpose not in the narrow terms of what profession they want to take on but rather in the expansive terms of what impact they desire to have on the world.
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Recently Facilitated at Stanford University
So often we, like our students or clients, are making decisions in the presence of fear. We can experience fear at the point of decision-making and then again when the consequences of our decisions come to pass. In this session, we will learn about the Cycle of Non-Regret as a tool for acceptance in the face of fear. We will work toward developing an empathetic connection to the tool, through gathering and sharing stories of decision-making and regret in our own lives. We will also take some time to anticipate scenarios when our students or clients may most benefit from introduction to the principles of the Cycle, and generate ideas for how it can serve them in cultivating a regular practice of letting go and moving on.
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Recently Facilitated at Princeton University and Oberlin College
Research on tacit knowledge reveals how difficult it is for many of us to recognize the skills that we use in our everyday work lives. This session guides participants through a series of prompts and exercises that encourage them to make that knowledge explicit. Beginning with individual brainstorming and reflection, and building upon that through partner work, participants utilize storytelling as a foundation for articulating the skills at which they excel. Participants conclude the session by summarizing key skills into a statement that highlights their unique contribution to an individual workplace or an entire industry. This “personal brand statement” can be used as a headline for LinkedIn profiles, personal websites, and other public-facing applications.
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Recently Facilitated at Princeton University
A cover letter is one of the greatest opportunities for an applicant to present a vivid image of who they are. Yet so many cover letters, like a bland online dating profile, rely on generic descriptive text that gives no real window into what kind of colleague you would be. In this workshop, participants learn a method that uses the job description as the foundation for drafting, to create better alignment between what the employer is looking for and the story that the cover letter tells. Participants will learn to apply close-reading methods to a job description, to extract language about the employer’s needs and values, and then brainstorm stories from participants’ own past work experiences to generate narrative content for a cover letter draft. Our aim will be to begin developing a practice of using each job search experience to build an archive of stories that showcase your skills and accomplishments, which you can return to for years to come.
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Recently Facilitated at Princeton University and Oberlin College
Curious Conversations™ is a method of interpersonal engagement, developed by Dr. Afia Ofori-Mensa, that uses inquisitiveness as a foundation for deep connection. In this workshop, participants learn the method by practicing Curious Conversations in pairs, with each participant taking turns in the role of storyteller and receiver. The aim is to cultivate empathy through vulnerable curiosity, narrative sharing, honored boundaries, and focused listening. Participants close out the session by reflecting on their Curious Conversation experience and how it may differ from their typical modes of engaging with others.
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Recently Facilitated at Princeton University, MIT, and Oberlin College
Many sources represent networking as a tool for getting things from other people, in a way that can feel awkward, one-sided, and opportunistic. In her work, Dr. Afia Ofori-Mensa defines networking not in terms of securing a job or advancing your career, but rather as engaging in “curious conversations”, with the intention of building relationships of reciprocal care. In this session, we will talk about Dr. Ofori-Mensa’s “Eight Steps of Networking,”™ a systematic practice of cultivating a broad and supportive group of mentors, and will also discuss a mutual approach to mentoring. We will close by engaging with Dr. Ofori-Mensa’s Curious Conversations™ method, which combines narrative storytelling with close listening.
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Recently Facilitated at Princeton University and Oberlin College
“Mentorship” is a word that has come into heavy usage in the past 50 years. In contemporary professional and educational contexts, “mentor” has even become an official title given to individuals in supervisory capacities; and mentoring programs have become a popular way to approach building networks of near-peer support for students, employees, and other learners. Many people put pressure on the notion of “getting a mentor” as a solution to educational and workplace ills, and still more think of mentorship as a one-way proposition, wherein an older and more experienced individual bestows knowledge and wisdom on their mentee. This workshop presents a mode of mentoring that is reciprocal – with no stark division between “mentor” and “mentee” – and multiple – with many relationships making up an individual’s mentoring landscape. Participants will complete a “Mentorship Map” inventory and reflect on which different modes of support mentorship can offer, which of those modes are well represented in their lives, and which would benefit from intentional cultivation.
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Recently Facilitated at Princeton University and Oberlin College
Students who are the first in their families to pursue higher education can often be unfamiliar with the cultures of college, including how to communicate effectively according to norms on campus. This workshop introduces students to strategies and practices of professional, interpersonal communication within a higher ed context. We cover writing effective emails; giving compassionate feedback; employing persuasive rhetoric; and asserting boundaries, desires, and needs, even in the presence of imbalances of power. This workshop is especially well suited to incoming first-year students and is consistently popular with first-generation college students and low-income students in any year.
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Recently Facilitated at Princeton University and Oberlin College
A personal statement is a narrative essay. Like any narrative, it must tell a compelling and cohesive story. Like any academic essay, it must make an argument that is previewed in a thesis statement and developed through analysis of evidence. In a personal statement, the thesis articulates why you and the opportunity are the right fit to move each other forward in alignment with your core values and future aims. The evidence is a carefully curated selection of stories from your life that illustrate how you came to hold those values and envision those aims. In this session, participants articulate aims and values, and identify foundational stories, by responding to a set of prompts. Participants will produce a rough-draft thesis statement and a Punchy First Line™ that utilizes narrative tension to spark empathy and curiosity, and inspire readers to want to know more about you as an applicant. Participants will leave with written elements that they can use to begin drafting personal statements immediately after the session concludes.
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