Intent and Purpose
We are a community of learners, teachers, staff members, and volunteers. Becoming culturally humble entails developing the “ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented (or open to the other) in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important” to another person.1 Achieving cultural competence calls for the development of awareness, knowledge, and skill in interacting with cultures different than our own. All campus community must develop the ability to recognize and integrate differences in core identities. We commit to develop competencies in learning, working, and living across differences.
1 Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., Owen, J., Worthington Jr., E. L., & Utsey, S. O. (2013). Cultural humility: Measuring openness to culturally diverse clients. Journal of Counseling Psychology
ART EXHIBIT GIVES VOICE TO
MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES
ON THE HILL
–
“This show was created in response to the [2017] protest against racism and discrimination on campus, so the exhibition aimed to address that by giving a space to marginalized voices and Black voices on campus.”
Amanda Rose ’21
In addition to providing a framework fo members of the St. Olaf community to develop intercultural knowledge and skills, the plan also attends to the institution-level counterpart of cultural competence: understanding how we communicate institutional identity and how it can be perceived by others. All liberal arts colleges cherish and celebrate their distinctive elements through customs, events, buildings, imagery, and naming. These elements help define what it means to be a student, and eventually an alum, of the college. They connect past, present, and future students to the college and each other. They are, nevertheless, always undergoing change, as each generation of students shapes and redefines these distinctive elements.
PARTNERS IN ACHIEVING GOAL 1
- Vice President for Equity and Inclusion
- Assistant Director of Academic Civic Engagement
- Bias Report Response Committee
- Counseling
- Director of Center for Advising and Academic Support
- Director of the Taylor Center for Equity and Inclusion
- Director of Center for Innovation in the Liberal Arts
- Director of Community-based Work Study
- Director of International and Off-campus Study
- Director of Music Organizations
- Director of Piper Center for Career and Vocation
- Director of Student Organizations
- Director of To Include is to Excel
- Student Government Association
- Title IX coordinator
- Vice presidents of Student Life, Human Resources, Chief Financial Officer, Director of Athletics, Provost
1A: Provide regular, on-going education and training
Examples of training and other opportunities for students (annually):
- Week Zero/International Orientation, required for all new students
- DiverseEDU
- ThinkAbout
- Bystander Training facilitated by Peer Educators (Wellness Center)
- Programming through the Center for Multicultural and International Engagement (now replaced by the Taylor Center), including a variety of speakers and events, and Cultural Conversations.
- Opening Day programming for faculty, staff and administrators.
- In the past several years, opening faculty meetings have often addressed some aspect pertaining to teaching, advising and supporting an increasingly diverse student body.
- Sexual harassment awareness and Title IX training for all new employees (and all existing employees have completed the training)
- DiverseEDU was implemented in 2017/18 for all faculty, students and staff; subsequently, new students, staff and faculty members must take the training.
- Student Life Division Training: Gender and Sexuality
- Residence Life and Registrar’s Office: Gender Pronouns
- Mental Health First Aid – available to all faculty and staff members
- International and Off-campus Studies: new training to faculty leaders of off-campus study and staff participants training in cultural competence with regard to intra-group and group-host interactions; this began in fall 2018.
- Center for Innovation in the Liberal Arts: speakers and discussion opportunities pertaining to diversity and to inclusive pedagogy, including “Designing an Inclusive Classroom” series
- Academic Leadership: meetings have included sessions on changing outlooks and priorities of students and strategies for supporting diverse colleagues and students.
- “Learning Circles” for faculty and staff addressed topics such as implicit bias, structures of oppression and privilege, and cultural identity.
- Sustained Dialogue
- Programming through To Include is To Excel.
- Using the training sessions developed for students, and for faculty and staff (two separate trainings) participating in off-campus study, develop modules tailored for students pursuing off-campus experiences in the community, workplace, or abroad.
- Complete a 2019-20 To Include is To Excel-funded project with International and Off-campus Studies to develop a faculty development plan and toolkit for enhancing discussion of diversity within off-campus study groups.
- Continue to use Opening Day to address issues pertaining to diversity and inclusion
- Develop training modules for new faculty and staff members as part of orientation
- Ensure that faculty members and employers are kept up-to-date on the laws addressing accommodation, perhaps through certifications.
1B: Provide specialized training for hiring managers, supervisors, and advisors, and for students and faculty members engaged in off-campus learning
- Current training for students includes:
- Spring and Fall Leadership Retreat
- International Student Counselors Training
- Peer Educators Training
- Center for Advising and Academic Support training modules for all student staff on topics such as “Privilege, Mattering and Marginality,” “Diverse Learning Styles and Diverse Ways of Learning” and “Working with Diverse Students.”
- Gender and Sexuality Training; Inclusivity Advocate
- CMIE/Taylor Center Leadership training retreat, program assistants
- Executive Council Meetings
- DCC/DISC advising
- Cultural Celebrations
- DISC, DCC, Executive Council
- Combined training session on listening and inclusivity for Student Senate and Hall Council members 2018
- Sustained Dialogue training session for 246 new student staff/leaders from Residence Life, Student Government Association, Wellness, Buntrock Commons, Recreation, & CMIE (2018-19)
- Special training on privilege for all student staff of the Center for Advising and Academic Support.
Other steps include
- Recruitment and Selection of Peer Educators, International Student Counselors, Program Assistants, Diversity Awareness House members to represent diverse campus community.
- New Advisor training addresses the differing needs and expectations of specific cohorts of students
- New Faculty Training: “Advising International Students”
- International and Off-campus Studies revised training of student participants in off-campus study training in cultural competence with regard to intra-group and group-host interactions in 2018
- Student Life, Residence Life, Alpha Phi Omega: Multicultural Competency Training
- Student Life Division training on gender and sexuality
- Residence Life training regarding gender pronouns
- Student Employment: Gender and Sexuality
- Search committee chairs for tenure track searches undergo implicit bias training annually; other members of the search committee are invited to attend.
- In 2019, implicit bias training available to staff hiring managers
- Academic Leadership (department chairs, program directors, leaders of non-curricular academic units): August 2018 workshop pertaining to ways in which academic leaders can support under-represented colleagues and students
- Training of Athletics staff, coaches, and student athletes on Title IX and mental health
- Taylor Center: Minnesota International Educator Meetings
- Taylor Center: ACM/GLCA International Advisor Roundtable
- Taylor Center: NAFSA conferences to develop skills necessary to support international students
- Taylor Center: Interpersonal Violence First Responder Training
- Taylor Center: Title IX LGBTQIA+ Survivors in Higher Education training
Other steps include
- Results of the focus on diversifying candidate pools and, ultimately, increasing the diversity of tenure-track faculty appointments can be found on St. Olaf’s Strategic Plan Progress Report (III.3). The report also notes progress on full-time non-tenure-track faculty hires.
- The Strategic Plan (III.4) sets a goal for diversity in staff hiring. The diversity of recent new hires exceeds that of our local labor pools.
For students
- Specialized training for SGA, other student organizations.
- Students accepted to study abroad will take a short session on cultural competence in regard to fellow program students and in regard to the host country(ies).
For faculty and staff members.
- Regular implicit bias training for hiring managers.
- Additional training on implicit bias and strategies for supporting diverse colleagues for supervisors and new department chairs and program directors.
- Special training for ensemble directors, leaders of off-campus study programs, directors of theater productions and dance ensembles.
- Enhance specialized training for advisors of international students.
1C: Communicate visible and credible messages of belonging in the college’s signature events, and in spaces and public artwork.
- Uprising: Narrating Black Expression on the Hill (a CUBE and Art History Department partnership), 2018, 2019
- Renaming of the Center for Art and Dance
- East-facing prayer room and meditation room in Boe Chapel
- Installation of artwork celebrating diversity in Rolvaag Library public areas
- Installation in the Rolvaag Reading Room of past women leaders at St. Olaf; with related programming planned for the fall 2019
- All residence halls include gender neutral restrooms and Ellingson, Kildahl, Rand, and Ytterboe Halls have gender-neutral bathrooms.
- Invite teams of students, staff, and faculty members to evaluate and make recommendations regarding certain spaces and events so as to enhance their inclusive message, such as in
- Public spaces and displays in departments
- Classrooms and classroom furnishings
- Iconic events and ceremonies
- Include gender-neutral options in planning for housing and restrooms.