Friday, December 14, 11:00 - 12:00, Bacon Hall 204
The VSLC and the Buffalo State NCBI Coalition Building Team are partnering to offer NCBI “Welcoming Diversity and Inclusion” workshops again in the spring semester to expand opportunities for students in service-learning courses to increase skills, understanding, and respect for individual difference in the increasingly diverse world represented throughout Buffalo neighborhoods. Based on the service-learning experiences your students have, we feel your course is an excellent fit for encouraging students to participate in one of these workshops.
NCBI is the National Coalition Building Institute, a non-profit leadership development organization committed to ending racism and all forms of oppression. The workshop engages students in an eight-hour developmental experience that builds community and safety while engaging participants in honest dialogue. It is a sequenced series of interactive sessions that ask people to reflect, share and tell stories. (See www.ncbi.org for full description). The goals of the workshops are for people to identify the information & misinformation they have learned about other groups; to identify and express pride in the group(s) to which they belong; to learn how groups other than their own experience mistreatment; to learn the personal impact of specific incidents of discrimination.
You can require students to participate or offer extra credit for participation in the workshop. NCBI/VSLC staff will track and provide you with participant names. Eight hour workshops will be offered on a number of Saturdays early in the spring semester, as well as split into two four hours sessions at least once mid-week. These will be arranged so as best to meet your and your students’ schedules.
There is also opportunity to connect research and scholarship to this opportunity. You will have access to pre and post survey data completed by the students from your course who participate, and may be able to publish on the outcomes. We will talk more about these opportunities at the meeting.
As you know, the 2012-2013 academic year is the Year of the City.This is an excellent time to further the connection between students’ experiences in the community, and their understanding of the ways people from different backgrounds experience the world differently. The workshop will also help to improve students’ disposition to learn from and interact in diverse environments.
We hope can join us for the meeting on December 14. Please RSVP to Margaret Harris at 878-5609, harrismt@buffalostate.edu.Please contact Laura Hill Rao (878-5811, hillla@buffalostate.edu) or Dr. Kevin Railey (878-5601, raileykj@buffalostate.edu) for more information or to let us know you will be sending students.
