Pre-Orientation: "Promoting InterCultural Dialogue and Creating Inclusion

Goals and Overview

One of the key goals of the program is to provide opportunities for you as a student to consider race, ethnicity, and nationality as pieces of your own complex identity that informs how you connect to your academic program, our campus community, and the world. With a focus on dialogue skills, the pre-Orientation program will offer opportunities for students to discuss and learn about the dynamics of race in an effort to support greater inclusion and understanding on campus. During the program there will be multiple ways to engage within intercultural groupings as well as within three “affinity groups”: international students, U.S. students of color/multiracial students, and U.S. white students.

We recognize that identity labels based upon skin color and/or national origin can be very problematic and in some ways seem counter-productive. We know using the labels can sometimes pose a particular challenge to multiracial students. We also recognize that some international students entering into this dialogue about the U.S. racialized culture and history brings many other levels of complexity to the conversation. Engaging these discussions and working with these complexities will be part of what we do during the pre-Orientation program.