INCE BECOMING A FACULTY MEMBER in higher education and student affairs, I have taught classes that focus on the experiences, personal development challenges, and other issues faced by underrepresented groups in higher education. My personal goal for teaching such courses has long been to empower my students to transform the campuses on which they will live and work into more democratic, just, and nurturing environments for all students, especially those who feel invisible, silenced, or marginalized. During the fall semester of 2005, however, my idyllic march toward campus transformation was arrested.As I used my model of persistent questioning to encourage twelve students in a master's level course on multicultural issues in student affairs to drill down into subjects, our group hit "oil."We subsequently found ourselves immersed in the sticky issues associated with multicultural competence.
Allan G. Johnson's Privilege, Power, and Difference, which prompts readers to look beyond individual responsibility and toward institutional transformation, directed us to the oil well. Raechele Pope, Amy Reynolds, and John Mueller's Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs helped us begin the drilling as it focused our attention on the practical implications of diversity.We drilled deep during a class discussion in the seventh week of the semester while considering the question "How do we create supportive environments for all students?" Initial responses included the following statements:
β’ "Meeting [targeted students] where they are"
β’ "Supportive environments are not enough;
we need to talk to [resident assistants] about how to become visible allies!"
β’ "Normalize the marginalized groups' [identities, experiences, worldviews]"
β’ "Educate [students and staff] on what it means to be an ally"
β’ "Create different environments for people to come out [in terms of their sexual identity]"
The class, having drawn from the readings done up to that point in the semester, seemed content that it had Too often, political liberals are automatically assumed to be multiculturally competent.