Oregon State Intercultural Student Services

Allison Davis-White Eyes, Director Intercultural Student Services

Dear Oregon State Community,

I would like to welcome you  to the new Intercultural Student Services newsletter!  We hope that  you will find our updates useful in getting and staying connected with us. With that, our office wishes you a rewarding and successful academic year. Winter quarter, thus far, has been a very busy quarter for our office as we go through our year of transition. We have begun by re-designing the office based on feedback we received from students and faculty. Of course, it is still a work in progress. We hope that you will join us in celebrating change and (re)visioning a future together. In addition to the office re- design the Office of Intercultural Student Services is continuing the Search for the Director of LGBTQ Student Services and Outreach. This very important position is a national Search chaired by Lisa Hoogesteger (Assistant Dean of Students) and promises to bring on board a committed individual to the campus community by Spring quarter. The student leaders of the Pride Center along with their mentors Robin Ryan and Beth Wasylow have done a phenomenal job in maintaining the integrity of the Center and the program as we transition to new leadership

Last Fall we had many wonderful highlights, here are just a few of the many highlights I would like to share with you:

Lauren Plaza, Director of the Cross-Cultural Mentoring Program, has seen an increase in participation both from students and faculty. This program is easily the most popular program within the Office of Intercultural Student Services. The OSU Cross-Cultural Mentoring Program was developed in the Fall term of 2009 by three graduate students, Heather Pearson, Lauren Plaza, and Malinda Shell. The program originated as a College Student Services Administration class assignment and was launched university-wide in the Fall of 2010. The program was designed to connect students with faculty and staff from across campus in order to form meaningful connections in a supportive environment through personal and professional development, cultural enrichment, and community building. Lauren Plaza is now directing the program.

Since the Fall of 2010, the program has gone through various transitions due to the growing global university student population. The 2011-2012 cohorts have grown exponentially and have surpassed the anticipated number of participants expected for the academic year. The Fall of 2011 participant cohort is substantially more diverse, with 64% of the participants identifying as international students with the Winter 2012 cohort following a similar trend.

Along with partnering with various departments on campus, the program has been represented at various conferences such as the Student Retention and Diversity Conference last Winter in Portland, the OSU Diversity Summit last Fall and will also be a part of The Art of Leadership Conference at OSU and the NASPA National Conference in Phoenix, Arizona this Winter.

Today the OSU Cross-Cultural Mentoring program is innovative and cutting-edge. To address the increasingly diverse student enrollment, ground-breaking and provocative concepts have been implemented in order to facilitate the needs of this extremely diverse cohort and will continue to be redefined as the program expands.

Gianluigi Benvenutto, Director of the CASA/Latin@, along with John Rivas and Roberto Trinidad have brought together various Latin@ campus organizations into a newly created Latin@s Unidos, which gives voice to Latin@ leadership and programming. In addition, the CASA Office has created opportunities with Univision, the largest Latino television network in the western hemisphere, and continues to build on Outreach activities to the Latino communities throughout Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Partnerships such as these will provide Oregon State University with a higher resolution with our community partners and stakeholders as well as potential students.

Dr. Sandy Tsuneyoshi, Director of the Asian-Pacific Island Education Office along with Steven Wong, GTA from CSSA, and Earlean Wilson-Huey, Director of Ujima, had a successful Fall U-Engage course that examined the intersection of identities and allowed students to explore their own inner cultural and intercultural landscapes with each other. The course was interactive, thought-provoking and was so successful in raising awareness both culturally and civically that many of the students who participated have now expressed a desire to create their own personal growth plan accessing the various opportunities at Oregon State University for leadership development.

Marisa Moser and Rylan Wall, External and Internal Coordinators of the Pride Center, provided the OSU community with a very successful series of events for Queer History month. Speakers, performers and general opportunities for growth and awareness were organized by the Pride Center creating an atmosphere of community, warmth, and learning.

Looking ahead to the Winter quarter, please be sure to mark your calendars now for the annual MLK week of events beginning January-16 through January 21, followed by Black History Month. Other additional events include LGBTQ Safe Space training (January 19), ISOSU International conference (January 27-28), and the weekly  Women’s Center film series entitled “At the Intersections”  (January 13 to March 13) which will focus on the intersections of race, gender and sexuality.

Global Citizen Initiative

The Global Citizen Initiative will be facilitating two events in Winter quarter:

• Women as Global Leaders Conference, Abu Dhabi – Dr. Mirabelle Fernandes-Paul, Director of the Womens Center will be participating with select students in the Women As Global Leaders Conference in Abu Dhabi March 13-15; The conference will be hosted by Zayed University and will afford women leaders with an opportunity to discuss issues pertaining to women as developing leaders in an international context. Dr. Fernandes-Paul will participate with 3 students to begin participation in this collaborative effort. For more information please see: http://www.zu.ac.ae/main/en/wagl2012/index.aspx
• The 10^th Annual Transatlantic Students Symposium will take place during Spring Break and is dedicated to the topic “Rural Frontier Communities, Global Challenges? The American West, the European East, and the Resurgence of National Mythologies.” This program will host international graduate students visiting the state of Oregon and Oregon State University. The Office of Intercultural Student Services (Allison Davis-White Eyes) works in conjunction with Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Prof. Reinhard Isensee) and OSU’s Master of Public Policy program (Prof. Brent Steel) in organizing a program which will include 30 students from Europe and the U.S. on an academic tour of Oregon, finishing with a student conference (open to the public) on March 30-31. The program is coordinated and facilitated by Philipp Kneis, on behalf of the Master of Public Policy Program. Additional partners include the University of Washington, Seattle, and Warsaw University, Poland.  For more details please visit: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/transatlantic/frontier

Addendum:

As many of you know the Native American community has lost a beloved friend, colleague, mentor and scholar, Dr. Deanna Kingston. As per the wishes of the family, there will be a celebration of her life on February 8, venue to be announced. We ask that any inquiries be forwarded to the Office of American Initiatives to either Christy Jones (Christy.jones@oregonstate.edu) or Allison Davis-White Eyes (Allison.Davis-Whiteeyes@oregonstate.edu).