PACIE stresses campus dialouge on diversity
Jonathan Wolinksy '10
Issue date: 2/4/09 Section: News
As a result of last year's campus climate survey the President's Action Committee on Inclusive Excellence (PACIE) has sponsored the creation of Dialogue Action Teams (DATs), also known as study circles, to discuss various social issues present on campus.
There will be three DATs and each will have between eight and 12 students and an impartial moderator. The students will be selected based on an application handed out at one of three information sessions held earlier this week.
Each DAT has a specific topic that the members will analyze and discuss during five different two-hour sessions. The topics are, "The Other Kind of Class on Campus" dealing with the intersections of social class; "Talking About Tolerance" with a focus on racial and religious tolerance; and "Social Stereotyping."
At the end of the five sessions, each DAT will have created an action step to do something about the issue which it explored. Funding will be available from PACIE to help with this, but the specifics of the action step will be left entirely up to the DAT members.
Interim Senior Associate Dean of Students Alex Vasquez, a PACIE member and one of the leaders of the info sessions, cited Wheaton's lack of consistent and purposeful dialogue about important issues as a main reason for the DATs. "What we're looking for is a shift in culture," Vasquez said. "We want to teach dialogue models that [students] can carry with them."
Associate Dean of Service, Spirituality, and Social Responsibility Vereene Parnell echoed this sentiment. "The goal is a talk that leads somewhere. We are about making a change on campus. Complex issues benefit from being looked at from a broad range of perspectives."
Vazquez emphasized that the data gathered from the campus climate survey "were interesting, but not bad." He also noted that "just because it's good overall, doesn't mean there isn't underlying tension [on campus] about certain issues."
"We don't talk to each other as much as we think we do," said Ebony Williams '08, the Program Coordinator at the Marshall Center. "We use Facebook and cell phones instead of talking face to face," Williams said about the need to have DATs regarding not just these three issues but about more topics further down the line.
PACIE has been on campus in several different forms for four years. The campus climate survey was administered online and available to all students on campus. The detailed results of the survey are currently in the process of being shown to various constituencies.
There will be three DATs and each will have between eight and 12 students and an impartial moderator. The students will be selected based on an application handed out at one of three information sessions held earlier this week.
Each DAT has a specific topic that the members will analyze and discuss during five different two-hour sessions. The topics are, "The Other Kind of Class on Campus" dealing with the intersections of social class; "Talking About Tolerance" with a focus on racial and religious tolerance; and "Social Stereotyping."
At the end of the five sessions, each DAT will have created an action step to do something about the issue which it explored. Funding will be available from PACIE to help with this, but the specifics of the action step will be left entirely up to the DAT members.
Interim Senior Associate Dean of Students Alex Vasquez, a PACIE member and one of the leaders of the info sessions, cited Wheaton's lack of consistent and purposeful dialogue about important issues as a main reason for the DATs. "What we're looking for is a shift in culture," Vasquez said. "We want to teach dialogue models that [students] can carry with them."
Associate Dean of Service, Spirituality, and Social Responsibility Vereene Parnell echoed this sentiment. "The goal is a talk that leads somewhere. We are about making a change on campus. Complex issues benefit from being looked at from a broad range of perspectives."
Vazquez emphasized that the data gathered from the campus climate survey "were interesting, but not bad." He also noted that "just because it's good overall, doesn't mean there isn't underlying tension [on campus] about certain issues."
"We don't talk to each other as much as we think we do," said Ebony Williams '08, the Program Coordinator at the Marshall Center. "We use Facebook and cell phones instead of talking face to face," Williams said about the need to have DATs regarding not just these three issues but about more topics further down the line.
PACIE has been on campus in several different forms for four years. The campus climate survey was administered online and available to all students on campus. The detailed results of the survey are currently in the process of being shown to various constituencies.
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