UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 21, Page 11
February 27, 1992
Oppression Training to receive innovation award

     Recognizing the importance of respect for the differences in
others, the Department of Housing and Residence Life has created an
award-winning program called Oppression Training for resident
assistants (RAs) and hall directors who are graduate students.
     The program has been selected for a National Association of
Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Region II Innovative
Program Award, which will be given at its June conference in
Pennsylvania.
     Robert Longwell-Grice, assistant director, chaired the RA
Training Committee, which included Susan Greenvang, Mary Ruth
Warner and Marvin Worthy, all area coordinators in the department.
He will make a presentation on the Oppression Training program at
the NASPA conference.
     The oppression program has its roots in a week-long diversity
program held last summer called Training the Trainers.
     Half the professional staff from housing and residence life
participated and came away with packaged programs, including
videotapes and printed material on sexism, racism, anti-Semitism
and other forms of oppression.
     In the fall, during their training, hall directors and RAs
divided into three groups and attended a session on the "umbrella
of oppression." The hall directors worked with their RAs who
selected a workshop to attend on sexism, heterosexism, racism or
anti-Semitism.
     Another workshop was limited to white males only, on their
roles as allies for oppressed groups.
     The professional housing and residence life staff presented
the workshops, and participants were given access to materials for
programs for students in the residence halls.
     One of the important elements, Longwell-Grice said, was that
participants could self-select the workshop they were interested in
attending.
     The workshops gave the RAs different perspectives on
oppression issues. "Students come to the University with
preconceived ideas and prejudices, and these programs help open
them to new ways of thinking, with facts to support these
concepts," Longwell-Grice said.
     For example, he said, the workshop on sexism discussed the
inequities women face in the work place, the career messages they
get from parents and teachers while growing up and pointed out
that, overall, women with college educations receive less pay than
men who have not completed high school.
     The anti-Semitism workshop presented statistics from the
Anti-Defamation League about anti-Semitic incidents from around the
world to drive home the point that incidents do occur and cause
genuine problems.
     In the Star Power workshop, role playing helped establish how
it feels to be in top, powerful positions, in the middle or the
underdog. By role playing, participants experienced the
frustrations that those in lower economic. disadvantaged or
oppressed groups feel.
     The last part of the program was an anti-Semitism exercise,
entitled the "Jewish Culture Quiz," in which all participants were
quizzed on such questions as how many candles in a menorah, the
name of the traditional headgear that Jewish males wear and the
highest holy day of the Jewish religion. (Answers: nine candles,
yarmulke, Yom Kippur.)
     The program was successful in fostering open discussions about
diversity issues, Longwell-Grice said, and the evaluations from
participants were positive.
                                        - Sue Swyers Moncure