Wofford sends group to National Coalition Building Institute workshop

According to its webpage, The Office of Diversity and Inclusion “strives to create and sustain a community where all students, faculty and staff feel appreciated and valued. [They] will accomplish this by promoting inclusive excellence through celebrating and cultivating student identities, social justice initiatives, diversity education, multicultural programming and sustaining supportive resources.” 

As part of this mission, the Office sent a delegation of representatives from Wofford, consisting of two students, two Resident Directors, a faculty member and a professor, to a prejudice reduction workshop hosted by The Citadel for the weekend of Oct. 26-28. 

The foundational goal of the workshop, organized and implemented by the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI), was to guide workshop attendees in their own awareness of “the different things people are going through,” according to Bryson Coleman, ’21. Consequently, attendees also participated in training activities aimed to equip them in the application of the idea of “awareness” in common situations, such as how to gently but effectively approach someone who may be unaware of their own prejudices or misunderstandings. 

One of the topics workshop attendees discussed was “-isms,” including racism and sexism, among others. Rather than berating people who show signs of partiality to “-isms,” Coleman said, the workshop was instructive in regard to how to “interrupt potentially offensive language” in order to determine “what has led [them] to create that stereotype [associated with the ism].” This approach, Coleman explained, allows both parties to consider potentially offensive thoughts and actions of as the result of personal, culturally-acquired experiences, associations and connections culminated over time. 

Other activities of the weekend included word associations and caucuses. The word associations, Coleman explained, were activities in which various words were used as prompts to elicit participants’ immediate reactions. This activity allowed workshop attendees to experience their own innate associations with words, often those related to the “-ism” groups on which the workshop was focused. Coleman referred to the associations individuals make to certain words as “the records we have of different people and opinions.” In the caucus activity, participants grouped themselves based on self-identifying characteristics then discussed common ideas and misconceptions they hear about their own group from outsiders.  

The speak-outs, caucuses and other exercises during the workshop enabled participants to engage in discovering the “records” they have of groups and, if the records were negative, provide a platform for open discourse about how to prevent negative thoughts about the group.  

Coleman, an English and sociology/anthropology double major with a minor in mathematics and a concentration in African American studies, plans to share what he learned during the workshop with the groups he is involved in at Wofford: Wofford Men of Color, the Association of Multicultural Students and Track & Field,  to name a few. 

Everyone who attended the workshop is a part of the NCBI affiliates at Wofford, including the campus’ NCBI co-team leaders, Demario Watts and Sara Milani. Coleman says Wofford’s NCBI affiliates are “learning how to facilitate and lead workshops.” Next year, Wofford will be the host of the weekend-long NCBI workshop. In addition to that, Coleman added he would like to see mini-workshops of the same style offered on campus throughout the year. 

 Caption: Representatives from Wofford attended the NCBI workshop and plan to implement elements of the workshop on campus.