By Bria Isaacson, Copy Editor
The Cornerstone Project, Asbury’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), centered on Holiness, Scripture, Stewardship and Mission will be ending soon and a new QEP will replace it.
The new QEP will focus on cultural responsibility, according to Paul Stephens, chair of the Strategic Planning Committee.
Cultural competency is addressed in Asbury’s Statement of Purpose, as Asbury “seeks to expand students’ horizon outward to understand the history and value of other peoples and cultures and prepare them for involvement in a complex and changing global reality.”
By selecting this as the next QEP, Asbury is dedicating the next five years to developing cultural responsibility in its students and policies.
Two QEP proposals have been chosen for implementation as part of this effort; these specific plans will be released at a later date.
In addition, “Embrace” has been adopted as a priority in the new strategic plan, which will operate until 2022. This initiative strives to provide programs to support diversity, “increase knowledge and importance of diversity,” “increase faculty, staff and student representation from under-represented groups” and “practice culturally responsive pedagogy,” as well as create other initiatives, according to Stephens.
Asbury is currently working on pedagogy and making all students feel welcome in classrooms through the Intercultural Development and Awareness Committee (IDAC), comprised of faculty and staff and chaired this year by Nick Placido, associate professor of social work.
IDAC recently hosted a faculty workshop—the first of five to be presented over the next three years—called “Culture and the Classroom,” which focused on structuring assignments and making them accessible for students from all cultures and backgrounds, according to IDAC member Erin Penner, who will be chair next year.
IDAC also hosted its first student panel recently, in which faculty heard the experiences of minority students here at Asbury, according to Placido. The committee hopes to make this an annual occurrence to educate professors on students’ diverse backgrounds. Professors can also sign up for a “reverse mentoring program…with a minority student to aid [the professor’s] professional development,” Placido wrote.
Finally, IDAC has written questions assessing cultural competency that will be included on course evaluations starting in the fall, and it has been working with administration to “discuss procedures for hiring, so as to help as much as possible to ensure that faculty are recruited from a wide variety of backgrounds,” according to Penner.
Much of this work, and the workshop specifically, is a response to a survey conducted by IDAC that found that, while minority students are often comfortable with professors one-on-one, minority students here are sometimes uncomfortable in global settings, such as classrooms, according to IDAC member and former chair Mike Hylen.
One of the survey’s main questions was “does a diverse student body feel comfortable here?” and the survey found that much more work needs to be done before the answer is “yes.”
“We have a long way to go,” Hylen said. “We need to act on what we’ve been saying.”
The first step, according to Hylen, was research and convincing people that this issue matters. Now that faculty and staff buy in and these conversations have happened, he said, the next steps can be taken.
“We are working on the faculty level currently, setting up spaces for conversations. We are having conversations on what we can do in classrooms and this will reach the school and faculty level in August…. We don’t have a formal structured plan yet…[but] the impact should be felt in a feeling of safety.” Hylen said.
These efforts should address concerns by some minority students here. Senior Ace Wilson said, “Many minorities feel like they’re on their own and alone. They feel as though professors are either ignoring them or singling them out as a minority…. I don’t feel like we’re supported by Asbury itself.” Of recruiting minority students, she said, “It’s the equivalent of when Christians want people to be saved but don’t provide support later.”
While IDAC works to improve relations in the classroom, Asbury will be creating plans for cultural responsibility through further development of its QEP and strategic plan; programs and initiatives that stem from these will hopefully address students and student programming, as this is another concern of some minority students here.
Although Intercultural Affairs operates several groups for minority students, including Black Student Alliance (BSA) and Latino/a Student Alliance (LSA), these groups receive little funding—only $100 per group per year—and senior Standia Civil, vice president of Intercultural Student Programs, said, “Programming [for campus] often has to be at the baby level. Many people here can’t engage with other cultures without being uncomfortable. We’re not a ready campus for talks on tough diversity issues.”
Perhaps these limitations will be addressed by Asbury in the coming years with the adoption of the new QEP.
