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
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“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.”
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.
