Brandon Golob, UC Irvine’s associate dean of the Campuswide Honors Collegium and an associate professor of teaching in criminology, law and society (CLS), has been named to the inaugural cohort of UC Dialogue Fellows for 2026–27. The University of California Office of the President announced the selection as part of an initiative to advance dialogue across differences in higher education.
Golob’s fellowship project, titled “Training the Teachers of Tomorrow: Dialogue Skills, AI Literacy, & the Future of Pedagogy,” aims to foster genuine communicative engagement among students. The project focuses on equipping graduate students at UC Irvine with the skills needed to facilitate difficult conversations in their roles as teaching assistants and as future faculty.
This initiative builds on Golob’s experience piloting the “Transformative Teaching” seminar for CLS doctoral students. That seminar prepares graduate students, who often teach courses on complex and contentious subjects such as hate crimes, free speech, gun control, immigration, and incarceration, to lead challenging discussions effectively. For classrooms at UC Irvine and across the system, these skills are considered essential for promoting understanding and respect.
The project operates on a train-the-trainer model with two main objectives. First, it seeks to develop the graduate students’ own dialogue competencies, allowing them to navigate and lead complex discussions. Second, it empowers these graduate students to teach these essential skills to the undergraduates they instruct, and to carry these teaching methods into their future academic careers.
Golob’s project is structured around three interconnected components. It will refine the curriculum to integrate dialogue skills throughout the existing seminar structure. It also plans to expand the seminar’s reach beyond the CLS department to other disciplines within the university. A key element of the project is the integration of AI literacy as a core part of dialogue pedagogy, with particular interest in how artificial intelligence tools can be used to deepen, rather than diminish, students’ capacity for engagement. The work is expected to produce shareable resources, including an annotated syllabus, a teaching guide for dialogue skills, and a module specifically on AI literacy and its role in dialogue education.
Golob's commitment to dialogue education is supported by his multidisciplinary academic background. He holds a dual B.A. in rhetoric and interdisciplinary studies from UC Berkeley, a J.D. from UCLA School of Law, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in communication from USC Annenberg. His teaching and research concentrate on how legal knowledge is communicated to lay audiences through various channels, including media and direct interaction.
His dedication to teaching has been recognized with 12 competitive awards. These include the inaugural School of Social Ecology Faculty Award for Teaching and the 2026–27 UCI Academic Senate Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching. He has also received four consecutive “Professor of the Year” honors as voted by School of Social Ecology students. In 2024, he was named one of Orange County’s 125 Most Influential People and received recognition from the California State Senate for his efforts in educating future leaders.
As a UC Dialogue Fellow, Golob contributes to building a systemwide community of practice centered on dialogue as a foundational element for learning, civic engagement, and democratic participation across the University of California system.
