Council highlights diversity at MSU
MINOT, N.D. – This month, the Minot State Diversity Council, together with Academic Affairs and Student Affairs, has brought to campus three online trainings hosted by Hollaback!, an anti-bias and harassment nonprofit organization. These trainings, in conjunction with other diversity and inclusion events on campus, are part of the Council’s 2021-22 “Stand Up 101: From Allyship to Action” initiative.
The Council’s predominant function on campus is to allocate funding from student fees to support the diversity, equity, and inclusion events on campus. After all, the University has been promoting such events for years, like the two-day Spring Honor Dance and Powwow since 1992, the International Cultural Celebration since 2013, and the annual pride flag raising since 2020. However, at the start of the 2021-22 session this past July, the Council wanted to take the events a step further by encouraging action.
“We were trying to figure out if we could revive the safe zones project,” said Vice Chair Libby Claerbout, Director of International Programs and decade-long Council member. “It was an initiative on campus to get people trained to be allies on campus for anybody who might need to talk about anything diversity related. If they were feeling harassed or unsafe, if they saw this safe zone sticker, then they could know that, ‘Oh, I can go talk to this person. They're going to be supportive of me.’”
“There were many other things we wanted to do as well,” said Associate Professor of History Mark Singer, Council chair. “And then we have pandemic. We have George Floyd. We have Joseph Flynn come in with the lectures that he did around his book, ‘White Fatigue,’ and a lot of people got really excited. A lot of the questions that came up were, ‘Okay, we definitely see the problems. What do we do now?’ That was really the point of transition into Stand-up 101.”
Stand-up 101: From Allyship to Action marries both of these initiatives. By attending at least two campus events that promote inclusivity and diversity as well as participating in one of the three Hollaback! trainings, students, faculty, and staff will earn a printed MSU Diversity Council allyship award certificate, a "Stand Up to Hate" vinyl sticker to display — a nod to the previous safe zones campaign — and the knowledge and skills to fight harassment and hate on our specific campus and community.
The first training, “Eight Strategies to Mitigate Implicit Bias,” took place on Feb. 8 with 26 participants. The following two trainings are Feb. 22 from 1-2:30 p.m. and March 1 from 12:30-1:30 p.m. They cover bystander intervention in public spaces and stopping stigma around learning differences, and they have been specifically curated for the Minot State community.
“They have different training topics that we were able to pick and choose for our menu,” Claerbout said. “For the second one that we're having, the bystander intervention training, we've had what they call a discovery session with the Hollaback! trainer, and we talked a little bit about the environment here, the history of the area, the cultural makeup, that sort of thing, so they're really going to be able to personalize it to what students see here.
“The third one, how to stop stigma around learning differences, we thought of since Minot State was traditionally a teacher's college, and we have really strong programs like ASTEP (Advancing Students Toward Education and Employment Program) and NDCPD (North Dakota Center for Persons with Disabilities). Then there are the academic programs Minot State offers in the areas of developmental disabilities and special education, so it could be really valuable to students. Maybe they already know some of what is presented in the training, but it adds another perspective.”
Hollaback! is a nonprofit organization and social justice movement whose mission is to end harassment in all its forms by working to create safe and welcoming environments for all people. Both Singer and Claerbout participated in their trainings before helping to implement them on campus. Having positive experiences made it easy for them to choose Hollaback! for the program at Minot State.
“Zoom has become part of the sort of low-level pain that is the pandemic,” said Singer. “The thing that struck me first was how good they are at doing online training, how engaging it actually was. I was prepared to sit back and sort of half check out during this. That didn't happen.”
“It's very interactive," said Claerbout. “This format must really be tried and true. This is what they're good at. This is what they do day in and day out. They have a lot of polls, and they have a lot of commenting and questions where the facilitator reads off the answers.”
Being the coordinator for the International Cultural Celebration, one of the events eligible for the certificate, Claerbout hopes this initiative will increase participation at campus events.
“We hope that a lot of people can attend these trainings because I think that they could be really, really powerful, and then we hope to support the other events that are meant to promote inclusivity and diversity,” said Claerbout.
Furthermore, as a faculty member, Singer’s hopes are for students’ education.
“If part of what we're doing is training people for the workforce, are we training people for a workforce that is entirely homogenous? Are we sending them out with that expectation? And then if they go out with that expectation, thinking that's normal, what is going to happen in the companies and the businesses that they manage?” said Singer. “I think that one of the things that higher education needs to do is to look at and speak to what really is normal, rather than what sometimes we're taught is normal, and what is normal is that we live in a diverse society where people come from a number of backgrounds. That's not a flaw, that's our strength.”
For more information on the Stand up: 101 initiative, visit the Diversity Council WEBSITE.
About Minot State University
Minot State University is a public university dedicated to excellence in education, scholarship, and community engagement achieved through
rigorous academic experiences, active learning environments, commitment to public service, and a vibrant campus life.
| Published: 02/18/22 |
