When I read the article titled “When Diversity Training Goes Awry” in Diverse’s Jan. 24, 2008 edition, I was once again reminded that my own experiences and observations of diversity work in colleges have often had a similar outcome. Some people attend mandatory diversity trainings reluctantly and frequently leave angry because they feel attacked or criticized just because they are from the majority group. Although colleges have worthy intentions to assist and guide people in a developmental learning process about diverse issues, the trainings, as the article suggests, often backfire because of a confrontational approach that hopes to build an empathic response.

While I don’t possess the quintessential answer on how to approach organizational diversity training, I have seriously questioned if there is a different way to get at the intended learning outcomes — to increase effectiveness in services and instruction and to ensure college environments for students and staff are free from bias and discrimination. To this end, I spent the last three years researching and writing about the journey of developing multicultural competency. For me, it has been an operative concept that has come of age in the diversity movement because it moves the work from the external to a more internal and reflective process. I will explain.

I recently completed a doctoral dissertation that explored the development of multicultural competency in student affairs professionals. The purpose of this study was to gain understanding of how student affairs professionals develop their own multicultural competence. Multicultural competence refers to an assessment of awareness, knowledge and skills, with the expressed intention of promoting the principles of social justice in education.

According to Dr. Raechele L. Pope, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy at University at Buffalo, State University of New York, the following attributes are all components of multicultural competency: awareness and beliefs about the value of cultural differences and the effect of one’s cultural heritage on attitudes and behavior; knowledge and curiosity of cultural diversity and issues that have contributed to the marginalization of diverse groups, and a perspective on root causes and systems of privilege and oppression; skills in communication, empathy, incorporation of new learning, and the ability to understand and advocate in issues for social justice.