Whole Campus, Diverse Communities: Student Promotion of Intercultural Understanding CJ Rowe, Peter Wanyenya & Hedda Hakvåg

Agenda  The Intercultural Understanding Project  The Active Witnessing Model  Practice & Discussion  Evaluation Findings & Questions

Learning Objectives Develop the courage to act Explore approaches to engaging in difficult conversations Engage with skills to build relationships across difference

Intercultural Understanding: A Transformative Student Training Model Three-year Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) funded project Partnership between multiple UBC Vancouver offices: Access & Diversity, International Student Development, First Nations House of Learning, Equity & Inclusion Office, Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, AMS, and Dr. Ishu Ishiyama (Faculty of Education).

Project Goals: Increase intercultural understanding Empower students to become active witnesses Build a community of practice on campus – Grow student capacity for engaging in difficult conversations and foster respectful campus environments Build sustainability

The Really? Campaign 1.Passive Campaign 2.Really? Workshops 3.Peer Facilitator Training

The Bystander Effect Bystander: a person who observes a conflict or unacceptable behaviour. It might be something serious or minor, one-time or repeated, but the bystander knows that the behaviour is destructive or likely to make a bad situation worse.

The Active Witnessing Model The “Active Witnessing Model” encourages all individuals to: adopt leadership roles at the university and in their communities move from being a passive witness to an active witness in their daily lives take an active role in promoting positive social change

Active Witnessing Model: Four Levels of Witnessing Ethical Witnessing and Social Action Active WitnessingPassive WitnessingDis-Witnessing Drawn from Ishiyama, F.I. (2011). The Anti-Discrimination Response Training (A.R.T.) Program: The Facilitator’s Guide for Teaching Active Witnessing Skills. (Unpublished manual). UBC, Vancouver, BC.

Active Witnessing Tips & Responses 1.Interrupt 2.Express upset feelings 3.Disagree 4.Question validity 5.Point out how it offends and hurts people 6.Put the initiator on the spot Drawn from Ishiyama, F.I. (2011). The Anti-Discrimination Response Training (A.R.T.) Program: The Facilitator’s Guide for Teaching Active Witnessing Skills. (Unpublished manual).UBC, Vancouver, BC.

Active Witnessing Tips & Responses 7.Help the initiator to self-reflect 8.Support the receiver 9.Ask others for involvement and help 10.Approach other witnesses at the scene 11.Send a message to the group 12.Reflect on language 13.Other? Drawn from Ishiyama, F.I. (2011). The Anti-Discrimination Response Training (A.R.T.) Program: The Facilitator’s Guide for Teaching Active Witnessing Skills. (Unpublished manual).UBC, Vancouver, BC.

CAR Context Action Result

Let’s Practice! You are an active witness.  What is happening in the scenario?  What strategies would you use?  What words would you say?  What might the impact be?

Survey Data

Student Experiences You don’t want to be a bystander, but you also want to step in in an effective way, and so sometimes... that’s not always right at that moment, but you need to make sure that you handle it in a way that if it is later, it’s still effective. Participant, age 21

Five Key Skills  Empathy  Context evaluation  Critical awareness  Creativity  Courage.

Student Experiences What to say when you’re intervening, like “ oh, really?” like “oh, this makes me uncomfortable,” or like.. “Oh, what did you just say?” You know, just to get people to have a chance to, eh, like revise what they say, instead of just being like “oh, what you say is wrong,” you know. Participant, age 19

Student Experiences I think [the workshop] made me... a lot more comfortable to saying no or what isn’t right, just saying it’s not right, and you know, um... and that’s something that I really didn’t, I really didn’t like have before. And I think, like... I became more comfortable in my skin almost, it’s like if I feel a certain way then I should be able to express that. Participant, age 20

Lessons Learned  The value of a dialogic space  Critical awareness as student leadership  Increasing self-efficacy and awareness  The necessity of courage  Working with the good intentions  Practice, practice, practice

Things to Consider Who are the workshop participants? Framing language “discrimination and stereotyping”

Moving Forward Will continue facilitator training and ongoing workshops. Have integrated the Active Witnessing component into student leader training. We will continue to assess the efficacy of this program through pre and post workshop surveys. Online module for all incoming students.

Peter Wanyenya Hedda Hakvåg CJ Rowe