The number of university students from various religions has decreased. However, the campus is interested in exploring conflict around issues of racial, ethnic, and religious identity. The University should have established that no one should discriminate against others based on religion. There are some cultural issues. I think the Office of Diversity and Equity for Students (ODES) can take over and handle all the religious issues. This training workshop with faculty, professionals, and students leading to share skill-building sessions on conflict analysis identity is important. I think ODES should be aware that the University is supporting the efforts to implement the events for all students who want to attend and discuss diverse religions and culture. Yet, it may be difficult to convince students to attend who are not interested in the workshop. This workshop is projected to raise awareness about thinking about the role of religion. Hopefully, student awareness will expand with this workshop. After this workshop, students will learn about ways to combine interfaith efforts between believers/ non-believers that would promote social change, political advocacy, and cultural spheres. I need to encourage the ODES to provide information regarding all that the all-purpose experts do to help every student feel that their religious beliefs are respected on campus and are impacted by the education of students.
The potential problem at the University is that not every student will show up at the workshop, due to lack of interest and other reasons. I highly suggest that the ODES invite all the GSR students to show up for all the GSR classes. They can ask the volunteers questions about this situation to become more aware about the religions and other cultures as well. The purpose of the workshop is to highly educate all the students, which will increase the chances of impacting everyone at the University. In the end, hopefully more students can change their ways of thinking.
The purpose of the event is to educate all the students, which will potentially increase the chances of impacting everyone at Gallaudet, so that they can transform their ways of thinking. The workshop is important because for on-campus students, they need to feel certain things from most people to feel safe. These things include not being judged on their religion or beliefs, being able to share faith or non-faith identity with others without fear, and talking freely about religious based beliefs, i.e. someone referring to their winter break as “Christmas break,” during a small group discussion. For example, the University made a change that resulted in Thanksgiving break being called Fall break.
I chose to discuss ODES because the ODES will improve students’ understanding of why and how diverse students can feel safe on campus. It is a safe campus at the university and ODES will help students grow during their four years at the college. Even if students face challenges on campus, if they learn that the ODES group is helping to make the university a united diversity, in terms of religion and culture, then students will probably love to see ODES’s Facebook page.
The ODES group wants to promote and invite all the students to a special workshop. It would greatly benefit students. Because it would help the community bond together and develop a close relationship, the students will benefit from understanding some critical points of the workshop, which could result in some philosophy changes within them. I feel it would help to ease tension between some cultures at the University. After all, it would not harm anyone to change someone’s way of thinking to a more positive perspective.