Students should take opportunity to promote dialogue about social awareness

It’s hard to talk about race. With dozens of ethnicities and nationalities represented at UCLA alone, race relations will never be simple. At the same time, race, like other social identities, cannot be ignored.

There is no better way to start the conversation than through one of UCLA’s hidden gems: intergroup dialogue. This two-unit class seeks to influence the UCLA campus climate by promoting understanding between people from a diverse range of social identities.

The intimate, confidential eight-to-12-person meetings teach students to ask critical questions about what it means to have privilege ““ whether that is through an alignment with a particular race, gender, class, religion, nationality or sexual orientation ““ and how that affects their perception of themselves and others. In addition to face-to-face interaction, students write weekly journals, read articles and watch video clips.

Currently, students who take the class are often those who already have some familiarity with issues of privilege. However, the dialogue would be most beneficial for students who haven’t been exposed to this conversation at all, which is why the course should be offered as a General Education class.

Though offering this class as a GE has some downsides (for example, those who feel pressured to take a class may not be as engaged), it would certainly attract a wider array of students.

Since intergroup dialogue at UCLA is still relatively new, it’s understandable that many people haven’t heard about it. Coordinators mainly rely on word of mouth and e-mail blasts to attract students.

The intergroup dialogue class should create alliances with certain departments, like women’s studies, that deal with similar issues.

Professors in these departments could then speak to their students about the dialogue course and encourage them to take it. Program administrators have already discussed incentives that might work in some classes, such as giving students an option between a midterm and a quarter-long dialogue.

The program will have to expand quite rapidly if it were to be offered on a wider scale. Because the class is “facilitated” (as opposed to “instructed”) by both graduate students and undergraduates who are trained in a seminar, intergroup dialogue is limited by the facilitators’ availability.

Drawing more undergraduates to the dialogue class means drawing more potential facilitators to the program.

Undergraduates who are going to be at UCLA for a few years are encouraged to be facilitators. Unfortunately, I am currently the only undergraduate in the seminar, and, as a senior, I won’t be here much longer.

This quarter, there is one dialogue on gender (which is still accepting interested students), and next quarter, four are planned. So far, 71 students have gone through the program.

This form of dialogue was developed at the University of Michigan, and there are about a dozen other universities which have also adopted it.

UCLA’s first dialogue was in spring 2009, and since then, there have been seven dialogues.

My first dialogue on race and ethnicity left such an impression on me that I knew I had to take another one.

I’ll never forget one videotaped study in which young girls were offered a choice between two dolls ““ one black and one white. I was personally not too surprised when the white girls chose white dolls.

Nearly all the black girls chose the white dolls too. When they were asked why they chose the white doll, they said it was because the black one was “bad” or “ugly.”

You don’t have to think too hard to realize what this means and that socialization has serious repercussions which must be addressed.

The second dialogue I took was on gender, and not surprisingly, two of my classmates were from the previous dialogue. That this class is worth taking twice attests to intergroup dialogue’s incomparable intellectual and emotional value on both the personal and community level.

Not only have the dialogues helped to dissolve some of my own assumptions and provided me with a whole new array of critical thinking skills, but they have also given me the opportunity to meet incredibly strong people.

Some of these people were from groups that I would never have had the chance to interact with in my other classes.

The ultimate goal of dialogue is to promote change, whether that means questioning a friend or family member when they use derogatory language or doing research on marginalization. If even one more person joins the class because of this column, I will have accomplished this goal.

Wise students will take advantage of the Intergroup Relations Program before they leave UCLA. Opportunities to convert the salad bowl into a melting pot are rare indeed, but this is certainly one of the best ones that do exist.

Got enough diversity? E-mail Nijhawan at [email protected].
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