In my role as Borromini Institute Director I recently attended WISE, the Workshop on Intercultural Skills Enhancement, hosted by Wake Forest University Center for Global Programs & Studies in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (USA).
This was one of the best education abroad conferences I have attended. I especially appreciated the relatively small size which lent itself to networking and the not-so-rushed session length which left enough time for introductions and discussion. But most importantly was the clear focus on Intercultural Learning. Amongst the many themes in international education (mental health, risk management, student engagement, language barriers, etc.) I believe the principal opportunity our students face is learning across difference. This conference gave me a real understanding of the difficulties we all face in doing this well.
One session led by Kelsey Patton of CLIMAR at Purdue University debunked “Myths of Intercultural Competence Development” such as attitude bias (“I mean well and that should be enough”) or knowledge bias (it’s enough to know how) or behavioral bias (I’ll just do it) and instead helped develop a method to move through the steps toward unconscious intercultural competence effectively.
Another session led by a team from Elon University told a fascinating story of a place-based storytelling project led by a community-university partnership located in Alamance County, North Carolina. Other sessions I attended applied practices of mindfulness to help with stress students experience in study abroad. The sessions from which I learned the most (and was challenged the most) were about the UNESCO Story Circles applied to intercultural competence. We will consider applying this methodology in our on-site activities moving forward.
The Plenary address by Katie DeGuzman, Dean and Director for Education Abroad, Dickinson College was entitled “Bridging Perspectives on Equity in Global Education”. The talk addressed head on with admirable honesty the new challenges posed by top down pressures to purge references to diversity and equity while questioning our own assumptions and practices. Do we apply our own preconceptions about social justice on other cultures. How can DEI critical incidents abroad be addressed and defused without derailing the program? How do some cultures take into account class but not race and are the outcomes really similar? I appreciated in particular DeGuzman’s recognition of the value of listening to on-site staff, those who live in the local culture and can help share cultural knowledge but are sometimes judged solely by the cultural norms of the home institution.
Overall this conference was an excellent experience and I hope that in future years other members of our team will be able to attend and learn the way I did.
