By Na’im Madyun, associate dean

I’m currently attending an intercultural competence training.  To begin, we introduced ourselves. We immediately felt connected and somewhat close as we noticed commonalities across our identities and cultural backgrounds.

Someone shared that they were an introvert and disliked large group sharing. I shared my current reading of the book Quiet by Susan Cain and how I identified as an introvert also. Others began to reveal their introverted identifications and the room became warmer.
As we continued the norming process of the group, the expected statements were made: “This is a safe space. We should be able to make mistakes. This is about learning. Every voice will be honored.”

The room appeared to act as one as we comfortably moved toward understanding how to become better cultural bridgers. We were still very early into the training and then someone referenced Ferguson. I quickly scanned the room and noticed how unified we remained – unified in our use of peripheral vision.  I sensed we were also unified in hoping it wouldn’t get any more uncomfortable than it was at that moment.

Ferguson was followed by a reference to celebrities using the N-word and one attendee modeled how using the actual N-word could take a lot of the power from the word. I am glad I didn’t feel the full power of the word because what I did feel seemed rather potent. Needless to say, it became a little less comfortable. The facilitators allowed us to remain uncomfortable as we tried to find that elusive safe space.

I heard well-articulated perspectives about diversity and equity that seemed incorrect. It was troubling to hear reasoned comments shared by people with whom I shared the earlier, immediate connection. I wanted to say something soft or clever to bring us back to that initial comfortable space, but I didn’t want to minimize the discourse, insult the intelligence in the room or dishonor the voices of courage. I felt stretched, strained, challenged and drained. I also felt like I learned too much, too fast.

Then, I felt thankful. I vocalized that I hope we continue to use this space as a place to test, challenge and demonstrate how complex diversity discourse is. In some ways, I set out to do that with this commentary and I want to thank those who helped me find a comfortable voice for disrupting comfortable discourse. Thank you to those who gave me commentary ideas, references, early draft critiques and last minute edits before I posted. Thank you to those who gave me critique and feedback afterwards.

A look back at this semester’s commentaries:

• I started with a commentary on the Washington football team – a tale of two stances. Since that commentary, there have been two interesting stances of note. One was from a youth football player who took a stance and another was from over 3000 people at our University.
• I followed with a commentary on fitting in and transgender admissions policies. Since, I’ve learned of other colleges becoming more welcoming.
• I wrote about the importance of paying attention to Ferguson. Since, I’ve noticed refrains of Black Lives Matter and I Can’t Breathe.
• After a trip to my home town, I wrote a two-part series on the Global Gap (part 1, part 2). After domestic demonstrations and widening U.S. opportunity gaps, I see better how global education becomes a matter of social justice.
• Someone suggested I write about Halloween. It was a revelatory experience as I didn’t realize the degree to which we benefit from masking our inability to resolve our social ills. I guess that is why there is a need for equity work.
• I ended with a commentary on Gamergate and the power of a single voice to stand defiant against tradition, power and “the comfortable.”

I plan to write next semester on Teach for America, disability rights, capitalism in higher education and other topics you suggest. I hope these commentaries invite reflection. Most of all, I hope they allow us to exist uncomfortably with each other as we dialogue on common ground.

By Na’im Madyun, associate dean

A recent request was made by the academic community to place an academic voice at the intersection of cell phone usage and leisure behavior. Admittedly, there is a little irony about a call for a cell phone to have voice, but it is definitely a call worthy of a response. This response to a call to give voice to a medium is by no means unprecedented.  A Face in the Crowd demonstrated  the importance of responding to voices present in a medium. Listening to the power of the voice that emerges from particular conversations was one noticeable soundbite I took away from this film.

On Nov. 20^th, I attended the last of four campus climate conversations scheduled for the fall. The first and second conversations were for our students. The third conversation was held for staff and the fourth was for faculty.  The student conversations were nicely attended. Unfortunately, there were approximately 4 times as many staff present compared to the faculty. Interestingly, there was a sound bite throughout all 4 conversations that amplified in my mind as I listened and reflected.

To what degree are  our voices both reflected and respected?  For too many, there is a cost to just “being” in academia and sometimes the costs are real when one adds voice to the inequity of their existence.

It’s troublesome to hear stories of colleagues receiving “retribution” for either carrying out their job description or illuminating disparities as engaged University citizens.  I privately reflected on how courageous one must be to add voice to the presence of injustices when knowingly not protected by academic freedom.

This commentary was probably one of the more difficult commentaries for me to write because of the nature of this topic’s peculiar relationship to bias and inequality. Recently, when voice was given to the nature of this peculiar relationship, a social media engineered tornado was created and targeted to the source of the emerged voices.  An impressive amount of time, energy and force was directed at the voice’s livelihood and any voice that dared to share the path.  This brings me to another soundbite I took away from a Face in the Crowd– the power of the medium  in leveraging destructive voices over just ones.

If you are not aware of Gamergate, please educate and then converse. The misogyny in many video games is as natural as using the female body to lure dirty cars in for cleansing at church fundraisers.  Because participation in gaming  is so high (59% of Americans are gamers and average 14 years of experience), the outcomes are socially acceptable (Phil Collins was in Grand Theft Audio, what can be more evidence of acceptance?). Because gaming helps to satisfy leisure needs, intersections with female objectification are either overlooked or to some degree expected.  Our climate is conducive to sustaining the female body’s use to support some of our leisure needs. As Gamergate has revealed for some of us, our climate is not conducive to sustaining voices attached to the disruption of leisure experiences if they are tied to that same objectification.

A professor’s attempt to add a disruptive voice to this leisure activity was canceled due to threats of a campus shooting, a “disruptive” female gamer found the death date of her Wikipedia page altered to coincide with scheduled public appearances, writers have left their profession , and some voices have even left their homes.

Despite threats to her business, her name, her physical home, her physical body, her family and her life, one face in the crowd has vowed to maintain a disruptive voice and has even vocalized a counter . I doubt she is doing this to satisfy her leisure needs or as a strategy for self-preservation.  To me, she is clearly deciding to stand up for those who cannot now or shouldn’t have to in the future.

It is noteworthy to recognize a wrong. It is commendable to add voice to disrupt the wrong. It is courageous to project against the wrong amidst real acts of retribution.  However, to selflessly sustain a voice against a wrong with little evidence that a chorus will emerge and even less evidence of protection for one’s life and the lives of loved ones is something we should desire to have consistently, naturally objectified in our diverse and equitable climate.

By Na’im Madyun, associate dean

What do we do when one artfully captures the pulse of a morning like Maya Angelou, the pulse of a day like Walter Cronkite, or the pulse of a generation like Steve Jobs?

Do we eschew the evening, stay the day, and generate the veneration?

What do we do when that which is artfully captured also captions the pulse of the mourning, the pulse of the night, and the pulse of mis-education?

Once a year, the pulse of the United States is collectively captured by children and adults as we creatively celebrate seeing with blinded eyes and “sugar-coating” our unresolved social conflicts.  Cultural novices can quickly become experts on what slows social progression in the United States by treating themselves to the ideas of a night – Halloween – that expresses the cool, the tempting and the cliché.

On this night, a cultural novice will learn the coolness of relating to ISIS as a religious meme,  the unavoidable temptation of Ebola, and the clichéd Black male athlete abuser.

On this night, a cultural novice can learn of how these contexts are not only rich for the development of our little kids in K-12 and our bigger kids on college campuses, but also the kids at heart.

There is something special about spending over 2 billion dollars annually on costumes to  capture the evolution of a young girl from a fairy to a vixen or a young boy from Flash to fuhrer.

There is something special about a doubling of child pedestrian fatalities  with 21% of those fatalities involving drunk drivers.

There is something special about watching your new classmates magically transform into what offends you and then travel back into your discussion group to offer their analysis of the reflective prompt for the day.

Every year, an article is written about how some cultural novices might see this as offensive  and inevitably some naive college may try and limit this harmless freedom of cultural expression.

Why even try? Who cares about the window to reference the clichéd research on corporal punishment versus child abuse, the tempting dialogue surrounding sex offenders and  trick or treaters or the coolness of displaced Islamaphobia on Muslim identity development?

This observance has long roots and any attempt to disrupt, interrogate or challenge such a tradition would be an unhealthy expression of pride.

We should be proud of this organic, fertile, prairie where we are allowed to exist as nature intended, capturing the beauty of living in a complex, diverse biome.  I wonder what we will capture next year.