World migration has been occurring for centuries. The reasons why people move are no mystery. They do it today, as they did two centuries ago, to improve their lives. What has changed is who are migrating, where they come from, and how they affect the local, national and global labor markets. These demographic events have dramatically changed how business operates in the USA and globally. More specifically, today’s employers seek employees that are knowledgeable of different cultural values, norms, behaviors and expectations, which will enable them to be effective in today’s multicultural workplace.

Washington State University has a long-term commitment to Diversity Education and is eager to provide a proven effective program that will help to achieve its mission toward building civility and respect among students, faculty and staff.

Our aim is to cultivate the “servant-leader” mentality in the campus environment and focus on cultural behavior competencies and commonalities.

The training sessions deal with issues concerning cultural differences and bias, but at the heart of the workshops is the opportunity to identify critical values, norms, and behaviors that we all have in common. The program provides participants with the skills to effectively engage people from a different background who bring a variety of personalities, attitudes and expectations.

Real case study scenarios are used in group exercises that test intercultural communication skills of faculty, staff and students through what we call the “Cultural Immersion Process.”

For example, when participating in a diversity workshop we often say, ‘He’s good with all kinds of people,’ or ‘he has a nice style, it all seems so easy’, without quite identifying what he did, thereby making it difficult to emulate. In the third level of the three tiered program participants will identify the actual skills that have been used, practice the individual components and then put them back together again in a seamless whole. You would not expect to learn golf by watching the Masters then saying ‘Now that I’ve seen great golf, I’ll go out and play some,’ this program focuses on the series of specific skills that make up the whole.

The essence of the program allows Washington State University to take a long-term view of its local, regional and global mission. There is international demand for graduating students with cultural intelligence and engagement competency skills. We must therefore think beyond our campus and prepare our students to be leaders in the global marketplace and a borderless society. As life long learners we must be problem solvers who demonstrate mutual respect, understanding, and acceptance of difference while searching for the things we have in common. We must negotiate past differences by employing good communication skills in international and intercultural arenas. The foundation for this process begins with Tier 1- Diversity Awareness.

Tier 1-Diversity Awareness

“The trouble that surrounds difference is really about privilege and power--the existence of privilege and the lopsided distribution of power that keeps it going.” (Privilege, Power and Difference, Alan G. Johnson, McGraw Hill, 2001). In this foundational presentation participants are taught the fundamentals of how issues of race, power and privilege can put people at an unfair disadvantage and how to think critically about inequality and oppression without getting mired in guilt or despair.

Tier 2-NCBI (National Coalition Building Institute)

NCBI is a prejudice reduction/conflict resolution model that examines ways to reduce racial and inter-group conflict by helping participants celebrate their similarities and differences, identifying the misinformation (records) that they have learned about other groups, identify and heal from internalized oppression, claim pride in their group identities, learn about the personal impact of discrimination through the telling of individual stories and again empowerment by learning concrete tools for changing prejudicial comments and actions.

Tier 3-Intercultural Competence

Cultural Competence begins with a knowledge of your own culture and knowledge of cultures other than your own. This session is designed to build understanding of different cultures, value and norms by learning how your culture influences your world view and behavior with the use of appropriate engagement techniques, language and terminology.

The participant will learn specific skills to identify and openly discuss differences and commonalities; include and utilize cultural differences and similarities based upon people’s own terms; differentiate between individual differences, cultural differences and universal differences; respond to new and ambiguous situations with ease and little visible discomfort.

How will you benefit from the training?

• Build better relationships across group lines; sharpen skills to listen to people with whom you may disagree.
• Enhance your leadership capacity by learning new information and skills.
• Learn new skills to avoid unintentional conflict and a different approach to conflict resolution.
• Learn commonalities that all people share.

Workshop Design:

This workshop has been designed to help faculty, staff and student’s leaders understand the dynamics of Cultural Competency issues by working through a series of personal and small group explorations. A close correspondence exists between the theory and the methodology workshop model.

Training Goals:

• Think creatively about how to deal with the people who have different personalities and perceptions of problems.
• Explore the misunderstandings and/or confusion that can result when people with different communication skills, upbringing, socio-economic classes, ethnic background, abilities, or even personalities, try to communicate.
• Make specific recommendations on methods for building a positive educational/work environment.
• Examine the commonalties that we all share.

Come join us!