Callout to celebrate diversity
By Megan Finnerty
Features
Editor
The director of the Diversity Resource Office does
not believe that differences between people should be tolerated.
She believes they should be celebrated and explored.
Dorothy Simpson-Taylor and others working with
the Diversity Resource Office will present a facilitating diversity
workshop/callout from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. today in the Purdue Memorial
Union, Room 256.
The session is part of a series of training events
designed to recruit and instruct students who have an interest in being
diversity workshop leaders.
"Cultural collisions occur because sometimes we're
not aware of certain issues because they're not a reality in our world,"
Simpson-Taylor said. "And diversity facilitators don't know all the
answers, but they know they want to create a way for people to communicate
across differences."
The students who come to the workshop will have
an opportunity for self-exploration and education through a variety
of exercises ranging from group work and lectures to individual tasks
and introspection.
Eventually those students who become a part of
the facilitating diversity team will be called on to present workshops
to various campus and community groups.
"We teach people to ask themselves how they can
create dialogs, not disputes," Simpson-Taylor said.
Jane Alexander, an adviser in the School of Agriculture,
joined Diversiteam, a group of Purdue faculty and staff that facilitates
diversity workshops, in the spring of 1995.
Alexander said diversity training is necessary
because by the time people arrive in a college setting, they've often
had negative or false input about groups of people unlike themselves.
"It requires a lot of efforts to work on one's
self and call others to do the same," she said.
For Alexander, this includes forcing herself to
expand her comfort zone and continually educating herself about diversity
competency.
But Alexander also said that reaching out to others
starts by reaching within one's self.
"Anyone who wants to do diversity work should examine
themselves pretty carefully because we harbor things inside ourselves
that we may not be aware of. Introspection is necessary for anyone who
wants to help other people."
Juanita Mascarenhas, a junior in the Schools of
Engineering, participated in diversity sensitivity training as preparation
to be a counselor at Meredith Hall this semester.
One of the events designed to increase awareness
was the Tunnel of Oppression. "One room was like a gas chamber; in another
we witnessed a date rape situation and others involved racism and sexual
orientation and so on.
"We have a diverse group here at Purdue and it’s
time we all become more accepting of each other."
Simpson-Taylor said diversity work is important
at Purdue because, although the University can attract a diverse body
of students, faculty and staff, it must be able to retain such diversity
by being able to appreciate and utilize what each person can "bring
to the table."
"We're not only doing this to enrich opportunities
here to have a more welcoming environment in order to keep students
and staff members here and happy, but because we're citizens of the
world," she said.
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