Talking Stick - March/April 2017 - 25

As Felisha Perrodin, assistant
director for residence education at the
University of Arkansas in Fayetteville,
emphasizes, "You can't do all the work
in a 50-minute session. You need to
keep going." In many institutions,
the training begins before the RA's
first day on the job, sometimes a
semester or more before. To keep
the conversation going, concepts
of diversity and equity are threaded
throughout the residential curriculum,
programming, and staff development.
Social justice information can be
disseminated broadly in the residence
halls: on the day that students arrive
on campus, during the check-in
process, welcome events, and the
development of roommate contracts;
during floor or hall government
meetings; as part of larger hall events;
and in passive programming such as
bulletin boards and fliers.
One of the most effective RA
training experiences is the opportunity
to engage in role-playing case
studies, such as those offered by
the Behind Closed Doors program.
These scenarios create a space where
focused conversations about race,
gender, and privilege can emerge, and
they can help RAs handle difficult
situations like dealing with a parent
who complains about the race of
their child's roommate or acting
as mediator for a resident who is
intolerant of her roommate's religious
beliefs. Though many of the scenarios
are based on theoretical cases, they
can also be based on actual events, and
some programmers are able to use a
recent event on their own campus to
provide a more relevant framework for
the experience.
The more relevant the training
experience is, the more likely that the
lessons will be remembered. BellRobinson stresses the need to use
specific institutional and geographical
contexts: "We provide local solutions
to local problems." Because these
contexts differ from one campus to

CONVERSATIONS
ABOUT SUCH
COMPLEX ISSUES
AS EQUAL ACCESS,
CIVILITY, AND EQUITY
NEED TO BE ENTERED
INTO WITH CARE
AND CONFIDENCE,
AS HOUSING STAFF
WORK TO DEVELOP
HOLISTIC LEARNING
EXPERIENCES THAT
CAN HELP RAS
ACKNOWLEDGE AND
APPRECIATE DIVERSE
PERSPECTIVES AND
INTERSECTING
IDENTITIES.
another, questions like the following
will have different meanings in
different contexts: How does the
increased visibility of issues involving
the African American community
and law enforcement affect how
students engage on campus? In what
ways does popular culture affect how
we engage in dialogue around race,
sexual orientation, gender identity,
religious expression, and other
identities? Gamble emphasizes the
importance of connecting the issues
to the context of their own campus.
At Clemson, they use actual campus
incidents as a starting point and bring
in staff from the campus multicultural
center to discuss them so that they
can, as Gamble says, talk "about

what has happened in the past at
Clemson - what really happened. Not
how we feel about it, but the facts."
The team members also examine
themselves, asking difficult questions:
What do incidents like these do for
our community as a whole? Do I feel
comfortable, safe, and knowledgeable
enough to be a leader myself? How do
I prepare my staff for what is going
to happen this fall? How do I help
them help themselves? What kinds of
privilege do I have? What privileges do
we share?
Before discussing the complex
topics related to social justice, staff
should be aware of how these concepts
are embodied in a language that is
constantly changing. As Bell-Robinson
notes, "Language is always shifting
. . . We do acknowledge that diversity
is a journey." Any discussion of
social justice issues is likely to be
full of certain words and phrases
repeated throughout the conversation:
diversity, identity, intersectionality
of experiences, intersectionality of
identities, liberation, marginalization,
multiculturalism, minoritized,
oppression, power, privilege
(heterosexual, male, religious, socioeconomic status, white, etc.). Because
some of the terms are sufficiently
general to allow for a wide range of
definitions, it's important that each
word or phrase be defined in a specific
context so that everyone engaged in
the conversation is operating with
the same understanding of what the
word means. At Miami University,
social justice educators keep up with
the changing language in many ways,
most notably by following discussions
hosted by the residence life Diversity
and Inclusion Committee, such
as those on current issues and
department-sponsored books. They
have also provided resources on
various holidays (e.g., Yom Kippur,
Kwanzaa, Lunar New Year, Cinco de
Mayo, and National Coming Out Day)
and collaborated with groups like

MARCH + APRIL 2017

25
Talking Stick - March/April 2017

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