“What is Cultural Competency? A Series of Conversations” spawned myriad questions, answers and opinions Thursday and Friday on what it means to be culturally competent and how to accomplish the task.
The two-day conference was organized by the Center on Diversity and Community (CoDaC) to invite faculty, students and community members to openly discuss the issues of diversity in higher education.
University President Dave Frohnmayer gave opening remarks Thursday before a video of University students’ conversations with acclaimed diversity educator and filmmaker Lee Mun Wah.
The conference continued Friday morning with keynote speaker Dr. Hazel Symonette, senior policy and planning analyst for the University of Wisconsin. Several concurrent sessions ran all day Friday, with presentations ranging from Oregon demography to the power of words.
The conference occurred on the brink of the upcoming re-release of the University’s Five Year Diversity Plan, which should be presented in the next few weeks. The original draft of the plan, which was meant to provide a road map for increasing diversity at the University, came under heavy scrutiny by faculty members upon its first release in May, with some of them even calling it “Orwellian.”
Defining cultural competency was among many topics discussed during Friday’s luncheon session, “The Cultural Competency Project: An Introduction,” led by Interim Dean of Students Robin Holmes. Holmes heads the project, an initiative by CoDaC, “to advance the educational and societal benefits that flow from cultural diversity,” according to its Web site.
The general consensus of forum participants was that cultural competency is the ability to work alongside a broad array of people. How and when that is achieved, however, was debated.
“The term seems to have an either/or sense to it – either you pass or you fail,” said one panel member. “It would be better defined as an open definition without a right or wrong.”
“Members of the faculty have an exaggerated sense of how intelligent they are – they don’t like to think they are incompetent in anything,” he added, causing a stir of laughs in the room.
Holmes said it is common for people to get caught up in the argument of whether somebody is incompetent, and it is up to the individual to decide what that means to them. She stressed that the important thing is being open to thinking “what else can I do,” something she feels the University faculty is willing and ready to do. “One of the measures of success in initiating change is pushing against existing policies,” said Interim Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity Charles Martinez to the forum crowd. “One of our challenges is to sort out all those questions.”
Holmes addressed the resistance to certain changes in the development of diversity.
“I’d like to accept that the resistance is there and just let it sit there,” Holmes said. “It would be a mistake to go after the resistance at this stage.”
The conference was not purposely held before the release of the plan, according to Martinez, but the coincidence is nice.
“This event is a good starting point as the draft is prepared to come out,” Martinez said. “It jumps us into the tough conversations that are to come.”
Holmes said it is exciting to hear the vast debates over cultural competency and the diversity plan from the faculty.
“Before the plan came out, not a lot of folks wanted to talk about these issues, but now there are disagreements coming out,” she said. “We need those voices.”
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Conference interprets ‘culturally competent’
Daily Emerald
January 16, 2006
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