"The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) competency area includes the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to create learning environments that are enriched with diverse views and people.  It is also designed to create an institutional ethos that accepts and celebrates differences among people, helping to free them from any misconceptions, and prejudices" (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p. 8).



Growth Within Competency

​CSP 6035:  Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs - Program Design and Assessment

The goal of CSP 6035 was to development awareness, knowledge, and skills regarding multicultural competence and the ability to implement such competency as a student affairs practitioner.  Designing and implementing a program designed to educate and develop students levels of multicultural competence was a valuable experience.  Working with a fellow classmate, we created "A Day in the Life of...," a three-part educational series in collaboration with the SEARCH Learning Community that focused on enhancing students' concepts of religious and spiritual diversity.  Because we had little experience in programming in this area of diversity, it represented a new and exciting challenge as we set out to "implement programs...that reflect an understanding and appreciation of cultural and human differences" (ACPA & NASPA, 2010, p. 10).



In designing the three sessions, we were intentional about starting with worldviews that had a strong, concrete base and worked our way to worldviews that were more abstract in thought and belief.  The three sessions we held (in chronological order) were:  Scientology, Amish, and the Hindu way of life.  Within each session, we focused both on stereotypes held by students and expanding their understanding of different worldviews.  It was during the session on the Amish that we began to examine issues of power and privilege, which carried forward throughout the remainder of our discussions.  This allowed us to discuss and help students recognize social systems within American society and how they impact different people as emphasized in the ACPA & NASPA professional competencies (2010).  For our final session on the Hindu way of life, we were able to bring in a person with that worldview to speak with students and answer any questions they had.



RESC 2000:  Wood Lane (A Chapman Learning Community Service-Learning Course)

In the spring semester of 2012, I served as a co-instructor for a service-learning  course in the Chapman Learning Community that engaged first-year students in direct service to people with disabilities.  Wood Lane was the name of the organization with whom we worked.  After speaking with the faculty member with whom I was teaching, we split up the lesson planning among the two of us and agreed upon topics and concepts we knew we wanted students to understand in order to add greater meaning to their service outside of the classroom.  This represented one of my earliest opportunities advance in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion through engaging in diversity programming for the first time (ACPA & NASPA, 2010).



Taking advantage of teaching with a faculty member from the Film Department at BGSU, I designed a classroom activity around an episode of the FOX television series Glee.  The episode, titled "Wheels," focused on issues related to people with both physical and mental disabilities and the implications of such disabilities when it comes to reasonable accommodation and the stigmas attached to people with disabilities.  After watching the episode, I led the group in a discussion of the issues raised in the episode.  Finally, their assignment for the following week was to write a response to an article from a organization advocating for people with disabilities that attacked the episodes portrayal of such individuals.  Artie, a character from Glee who requires the use of a wheelchair, is the focus of the article because the actor does not require a wheelchair in real life (pictured right).

​