Introduction to Global & Intercultural Engagement
At the core of this competency is global awareness. The Global and Intercultural Engagement competency asks higher education practitioners to learn and continue to learn about issues happening on a global scale, particularly those that contribute to identity formation. Engagement with this competency helps those in higher education understand where each student may be coming from and how to engage with them. Additionally, it calls for the individual practitioner to assess their own place in the world and how their particular worldview may affect their work. Constant education and reassessment of this benefits not only the students but the higher education community itself. Empathy, openness, and curiosity are pivotal to this competency practice.
Application of Global and Intercultural Engagement
Orientation and Diversity
As an Orientation leader, I was asked to lead Diversity Edu as a part of a campus-wide effort to get first-year students thinking about their worldview and how that interconnects with the campus population. In this, we practiced participating in activities that assess and complicate our understanding of inclusion, oppression, privilege, and power. I facilitated conversation after students completed an assessment of their privileges. Many students from fairly homogenous backgrounds had no idea that others faced difficulties in areas they had never previously thought about. While these conversations couldn’t encompass everything relating to their understanding of inclusion, oppression, privilege, and power, it opened the door for them to feel comfortable having these conversations and open with others in their communities.
Advising Cultural Student Groups
Further, in both years of my graduate assistantship at the Robsham Theater Arts Center, I have had the opportunity to advise and work with student groups like the South Asian Student Association, Korean Student Association, Chinese Student Association, and the African Student Organization. This competency helps me to keep an open mind and understand the multitude of cultural differences in performance and student experience. Especially in something so prescriptive as theater, there are often facilitation standards that are steeped in white American culture. For example, it is generally accepted that audience members stay seated while a performance is being held and that the audience volume is quiet. In other cultures, people stand, cheer, and yell, which is how they enjoy their performances and show appreciation. If taken at face value, these differences might show disrespect and a lack of a particular social acceptability. Awareness of differing cultural norms makes facilitating shows easier and makes me and my team more adaptable and accepting of the student body when they use our space. Setbacks within this competency include adapting to the ever-changing makeup of the student body. Each year, Boston College admits a more diverse incoming class than the year before. The Robsham Main Stage used to fit the audience and needs of the African Student Organization. But,as their programming needs expanded and their audience grew, it became challenging to host their show on the Main Stage, with its technical and capacity limitations. This required creative problem-solving that eventually resulted in moving the African Student Organization’s Fashion Show to 300 Hammond Pond Parkway, a venue that could meet their needs better and was better accustomed to differing cultural norms, like differing timeliness requirements, ability for musical guests and space to exhibit varying fashions from different African cultures comfortably.
Solidarity and Global Awareness
Lastly, an essential artifact for me lies in an experience I had at the vigil for lives lost in Palestine that occurred on campus in October. I try to keep up with world news, and I attended the event because I believed in the event’s message and because of the words my professor, Dr. DeVeau, said to me. She articulated that showing up for students, even in silence, shows them you care about what they care about. I knew that it was necessary to stand with students who are minoritized and feel isolated in the greater campus conversation. I saw many students I worked with at the event, and it meant so much to me to stand in solidarity with causes that our students care about and to let them know I am active and aware of the global issues affecting students. This was a peak moment in my work of understanding and enacting global and intercultural competency.
Progress and Future Growth
I have developed my ability to hold space for global and intercultural differences, and I hope to grow from here. I aim to work at large universities that cater to diverse populations, including international students. Higher education in the United States doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and to keep updated is to stay abreast of what matters to students on campus and the forces that affect them. Especially as I hope to work with queer students, these contexts are essential for me to understand. There is a lot of global difference in the treatment of queer people, and working at a larger institution has already begun to expose me to students with diverse upbringings and different cultural backgrounds and lenses with which to understand queer identities. My mark of success in this competency is a commitment to seeking out information regarding intercultural issues and histories and having conversations with those of different worldviews.
Emma Roney 