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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
inside this issue
MONDAY, JAN. 25, 2016 | VOLUME 130 ISSUE 3
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OMA sees an uptick in diversity training requests
▶ LARA KORTE
@lara_korte
Faculty from the School of Social Welfare spent Friday morning in a classroom at the Office of Multicultural Affairs to help their students by learning about themselves.
The group discussed privilege and oppression in society for three hours as well as how to handle difficult dialogues on different topics. The faculty were at a microaggression training hosted by the educators at the OMA.
The School of Social Welfare is one of many groups on campus who have sought diversity training at the OMA recently.
"What was really helpful for me was hearing my faculty members' perspectives, what they had experienced in trying to facilitate difficult issues in class and then working out some potential strategies for how we might be able to handle those difficult dialogues in the future," Smokowski said.
Director of the OMA Precious Porras said the office has seen an uptick in training requests the past few months. Last fall the office trained 7,400 people, compared to 6,100 in Fall 2014.
Paul Smokowski, Dean of the School of Social Welfare, said the training was divided into two parts - a facilitated conversation and a lecture-oriented session on microaggressions.
The idea of introspection is
at the center of OMA trainings. Porras said the trainings, which are designed to educate people on issues of social justice, are geared towards trying to get individuals to acknowledge their identities and the privileges or oppressions that go along with them. This way, Porras said, people are able to explore how their previous dispositions affect how they interact with others.
"Let's go a little bit deeper and talk about what is your story, what does that mean to you and how does that show up and impact your Jayhawk experience." Porras said.
Right now, there is no mandatory training at the University. Director of the Office of Diversity and Equity Nate Thomas said the office will be focusing on ways to bring
Porras said people are generally used to identifying themselves by profession or hometown, but when it comes to training, Porras said the OMA tries to go further.
Diversity and inclusion training has been on the minds of many at the University over the past few months. In November, the student group Rock Chalk Invisible Hawk, listed mandatory, intense "inclusion and belonging" training for all levels of students, staff, faculty and administration in its 15 demands.
Porras also said once someone is aware of their privileges, it can create a more inclusive environment.
training to more people at the University, particularly instructors and educators.
"We're going to continue to enhance how we look at providing training to the campus, because that's one of our priorities this year, working with CTE, the Center for Teaching Excellence, working with HR." Thomas said. "We're already having discussions around that."
Porras said having educators who are aware of their identities is important for creating an inclusive and accepting classroom.
"If you weren't aware before that you're micro-aggressing students with the language you use in the classroom or you're forcing trans students to out themselves when you call their names on the roster even though they go by a different name, those are things you don't know if you're blind to that privilege that you have," Porras said.
Although training can offer many useful tips for educators, Porras said they do train a large amount of students as well to help develop inclusive leadership skills. One of the other focuses of the training, Porras said, is making sure to establish a common language when it comes to issues of diversity, such as introducing yourself with your personal pronouns.
"It's intro-
ducing
com*
mon language so that we're all sharing this common vernacular on inclusion on campus education, "Porras said.
The OMA has been doing diversity training for many years but Porras said over the past five years the focus has shifted from issues revolving around race to a broader spectrum of issues.
"That focus has moved to a social justice focus, really looking at diversity issues on campus and how we can try and address them," Porras said.
The OMA has been working with the Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equality as well as the Center for Sexuality and Gender Diversity to look at areas where different identities and privileges intersect. Porras said that, although race is important and it is discussed in training, it is no longer the sole focus.
"We're also talking about other identities, how they intersect and what they look like," Porras said.
Training can last anywhere from one to five hours, depending on the group's preference. Porras said she likes to do at least a two-hour session to cover all the bases.
While the conversation
usually out from a common place of recognizing privilege and identities, the training can be finetuned to meet the specific needs of the unit undergoing the process. Porras said the School of Social Welfare focused on microaggressions, but other groups might work with different aspects of social justice.
"The pieces that make it specific to the unit are centered around what's going around their unit and what things they want to work on," Porras said.
Porras said she hopes the training can help participants approach uncomfortable issues that might have seemed ominous or foreboding in the past. Porras said that, although it might not be easy, conversation centered around privilege, identity and oppression is important to an overall better campus.
"We need to be uncomfortable and have that dialogue so we're having some conversation, saying these are ways you can have that conversation in a safer experience," Porras said. "These are ways that we can try and broach the topic so that everyone's voice is heard."
- Edited by Sam Davis
KU students discuss complaints at diversity and inclusion meeting Thursday
Asian
▶ LARA KORTE
@lara korte
At a meeting on diversity and inclusion on Thursday, Jeffery Durbin, a fifth-year senior from Fort Scott, Kan., said he has been hearing complaints from students for over two years.
The complaints were that the admissions process was vague and inconsistent.
To apply, the program requires a student to submit their GPA, ACT score, two essays, and a resume detailing extracurricular involvement. Although there is no minimum GPA or ACT requirement, several students said they were discouraged from even applying upon seeing the average scores of honors students, which are listed at the top of the application
"A number of students, both present and former, had expressed a lack of understanding as to why their application process had been rejected," Durbin said. "It was unclear what [the students'] voice was in that application."
Durbin said he had spoken with students who were
ing, asking
Multicultural
students who were confused and frustrated with the requirements for the program. During his time on student senate as a junior, Durbin said he drafted a resolution for structural change to the admissions process The resolution ultimately failed.
Durbin said students who did not have outstanding test scores should be able to advocate for themselves and have a voice in the application process.
"A lot more than your academic metrics factor into how successful you are," Durbin said.
Durbin and many others voiced their concerns during a "think tank" meet-
Bryan Young, director of the program and a professor of civil and environmental engineering, said the purpose of the meeting was to provide the faculty with "input, feedback, comments and concerns that we can work with to work on a continued and sustained effort to improve the honors program and services that we provide to the students at the University of Kansas."
faculty members to take a critical look at the structure and environment of the University Honors Program.
Not Specified
Many students in the room expressed their con-
Durbin said this kind of metric standard could be discouraging to students who come from marginalized backgrounds where opportunities for test prep and advanced courses were not available.
"How does a student, who is coming to KU without any kind of resources, or coming from a high school that didn't have AP or IB curriculum, how do they get access and preparation for college and how do we expect them to walk into KU and get a 3.8 GPA and still receive a message from the University that says 'we value you, we want you to succeed, we don't just want to retain you, we want you to succeed," Durbin said.
Omara Rana, a senior from Tulsa, Okla., said the honors program should take everything into consideration when looking at admissions.
"One thing the Honors school needs to think about is what students are facing," Rana said, "like what happened in high school that maybe either caused their GPA to not be as high as you want or the ACT or SAT scores not as high as you want."
Rana said he wants to know if the honors program has considered taking a more holistic approach to admission by looking at community service and engagement.
"I feel like what makes an honors student or makes a great student at KU goes a lot beyond how academically successful you are," Rana said.
Aside from the admissions process, many students voiced concerns that the honors program fostered an exclusive environ-
SEE HONORSPAGE3
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