Conference Gives Faculty Skills to Enhance Understanding of Diverse Student Body

Faculty and staff in the School of Health and Human Services gathered earlier this summer for a conference aimed at enhancing awareness and understanding how best to support SUNY Plattsburgh BIPOC students in the field.

Sponsored by the Office of the Dean, EHHS, the conference held at the Valcour Inn and Boathouse,  touched on topics such as cultural and implicit biases, among others, designed to help faculty and staff hone skills to “improve academic success outcomes for their students,” said Dr. Lolita Kincade, associate professor and chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Relations.

Kincade said events like this conference are important because they give participants the chance to learn about topics that have practical applications to their practice.

“Learning about different lenses, cultural biases, implicit biases — these are the things that are going to help us be more effective in practice,” she said.

Kincade said she personally hoped “to be re-inspired, re-motivated, rejuvenated for the coming fall term.”

“Critical Work’

“This work is so critical to what we do at EHHS, being in human services professions,” said Dr. Michelle Bonati, associate professor and co-chair of the education department.

“We want to make sure there is greater awareness and understanding of how to best support our students in the field, particularly our students who are BIPOC — Black and indigenous people of color —who are maybe coming from other areas and they’re working with folks here in the North Country,” she said.

Bonati co-chaired the conference planning committee with Kincade.

Learning About Identity to Create Belonging

Dr. Dar Mayweather, business consultant and lecturer of leadership studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, led the exercises at the event.

Mayweather said his training helps people recognize “that people come from systems, structures and institutions that have ignored a lot of identity work, what it takes to create belonging within communities.”

“If that is the case, then how do we recognize that some of our students come to our universities with well-known abilities to navigate some of these things, but some come with none at all,” he said. “We need to build these to be able to navigate the process with them.”

Bonati said the program was initially designed for employees who work with students in their clinical experiences across different programs in the academic school.

To reach more people, organizers opened registration to employees across the university with participants from offices like TRIO student support services and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Faculty from numerous academic departments took part, including nursing, social work, teacher education, communication sciences and disorders, and the counseling graduate program.

This was the second similar event sponsored by the academic school that focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. Last year’s speaker was Dr. Portia Allie-Turco, assistant professor of counselor education and program coordinator for the mental health counseling program.

‘Learn What Makes Students Who They Are’

“You can’t lead people you don’t know,” Mayweather said. “Although we realize students come from a lot of marginalized groups whether it’s race, sexual orientation, gender, etc., we need the ability to learn to get to know what makes them who they are. What makes them gifted, what makes them talented, why are they here, and how can we help them embellish that so they can get a job after graduation.”

The conference was interactive, and attendees worked in small groups. One exercise asked faculty and staff to create an impact statement for their department, highlighting what might need to change so they could better serve the mission and vision of the School of Education, Health and Human Services.

The mission specifies cultivating “inclusive, dynamic learning environments that prepare students for professional careers to serve the diverse needs of others” and the vision is to “graduate ethical and culturally competent professionals who thrive in their careers and model excellence by championing the education, health and personal growth of our global citizens.”

Faculty from special education talked about the need to teach SUNY Plattsburgh students to meet the different needs of special education students while aiming for those same students not to feel separated from the rest of the classroom, which might be comprised of students not enrolled in special education.

‘Some Facets of Identity are Invisible’  

Mayweather said students and employees bring their experiences from their identity groups and backgrounds to college and work every day.

“There is no escaping social identity,” Mayweather said, adding that identity is like an iceberg with much of it lying beneath the visible surface. “If we only engage what we see, we are sorely missing so much more.”

Faculty and staff should get to know students well to provide the best support to them possible so they can succeed in every aspect of their education, Mayweather said.

To illustrate the varied experiences within the group that might impact them as leaders, Mayweather used a series of questions and asked participants to physically sort themselves into the category that best answered the question for them, with people sharing as much as they were comfortable.

The categories represented minority groups and other aspects of identity: age, race, gender, disability, socioeconomic status, family, religion/spirituality, appearance/body image, “where you call home” and education.

People identified what aspect of their identity might present challenges for them in different situations, what attribute they’re most aware of at work and more.

Each question required several moments of thought from the group.

After the conference, Margaret Baranoff, library assistant, said the group exercise made an impression on her.

“If we’re struggling with that self-awareness (of identity), you can imagine how that would be for our students and how that affects their attitudes,” Baranoff said.

Baranoff said the conference did a great job of developing sensitivity to the identities and stories of others.

For more information, contact the School of Education, Health and Human Services at 518-564-3066.

— Story, Photos by Assistant Director of Communications Felicia Krieg