The Intercultural Development pillar is about providing our campus community opportunities to become better intercultural communicators. We are all about exploring the question: How do individuals influenced by different cultural groups negotiate shared meaning in interactions? We do this in our workshops and trainings by providing participants chances for reflection, learning, and putting skills into practice, with our dialogue programs through intentionally designed group experiences led by invested faculty and staff, and with our Social Justice Peer Educators, who provide students with active and passive education related to differing identities where they live in their residence halls.
Social Justice Peer Educators (SJPE)
Social Justice Peer Education involves interactive workshops that promote social identity development while building a community of social justice advocates on campus. SJPEs live on each residential block to provide ongoing support to students living in the residence halls. They may also be requested to present across campus.
Intergroup Dialogue (IGD)
糖心视频's IGD is a collaborative program supported by the division of Student Development, the office of the Dean for Student Engagement, the office of the Chief Diversity Office, and housed within UMEC. Intergroup Dialogues are semester-long, face-to-face, small group discussions around one or more social identities, such as race or gender, led by trained faculty and staff facilitators who create a supportive, yet challenging, space to explore these complex issues.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is an Intergroup Dialogue?
Intergroup Dialogues (IGD) are prolonged (10 week) small group discussions between different groups (e.g. students of color and white students, LGBT students and heterosexual students, etc.) which are led by trained facilitators who create a safe space for intergroup interaction to take place. IGDs can be characterized as face-to-face discussions that are open, honest, challenging, and reflective around issues that exist between groups. Each group is ideally comprised of equal representation of majority and underrepresented participants surrounding each topic.
Who are the facilitators?
Each group is co-facilitated by a combination of trained staff members and faculty. All facilitators completed training in active listening, conflict management, group processes, and social identity issues prior to the beginning of the dialogues. In each group, one facilitator is a member of the majority identity being explored and the other is a member of the underrepresented identity to ensure balance within the group
Time Commitment
IGD is an eight to ten-week, two hour per week, time commitment. The sessions begin approximately three weeks into the semester with groups offered both in the fall and spring semesters. Attendance will be taken at each session. Many faculty members use IGD as an assignment or to offer extra credit for their courses. At the end of each session, there will be fifteen minutes available for reflection.
What are the benefits?
By engaging in the IGD program, participants will:
- engage in meaningful, structured interactions between students of diverse backgrounds
- increase understanding and awareness of themselves, groups they belong to, and others from different identities
- become familiar with intergroup issues and challenges related to specific identities in relation to national and global issues
- critically reflect on personal and shared identity experiences
- practice the techniques of dialogues
- become informed and active global citizens
Groups Topics:
Race: This group will explore issues related to race and ethnicity in the United States today. Current events as well as societal structures will be examined, alongside personal identity.
Gender: Participants in the gender group will have the opportunity to dialogue on issues of gender, sexuality, and the role of gender in society, specifically focusing on the culture within the United States.