International
Initiative
Josie Sittig, Andrea Miller, Daniela Rincon, Cole Luther
For our Commons Campaign, we wanted to raise cultural
awareness among international and American students in order to create a
stronger community on campus. Our rhetorical situation initially came from a
problem that is recurrent among students, and that has affected and divided our
generation: using stereotypes to create quick assumptions about people. Our
rhetorical problem was found by thinking about how at certain points in our own
lives we have limited our brains to assume and accept facts that in a certain
way are just common perceptions of reality. Based on our everyday experiences,
we were able to say that most college students, at some point in their college
careers, have stereotyped people who don’t follow what their brains categorize
as a ‘typical student.’ This problem has generated a cultural barrier between
international and American students, an issue that has gotten to a point where
friendships between both types of students are not as common as they should be;
taking into consideration that UNL is a culturally diverse university.
At the root of this problem is the lack of cultural knowledge
and awareness among UNL students. This lack of knowledge has prevented
students, regardless of their nationality, from getting to know new people
because they take assumptions as facts. When we accept the belief that what we
barely know about someone is completely true, we are denying others the
possibility of showing us how different reality is from our assumptions. As a
result, our major constraint is that UNL students may already have stereotypes
about certain cultures based on what they see on the media or what they wrongly
assume about their own country.
The Commons Campaign was our opportunity to show a new vision of
culture to both types of students. In this way, the opportunities that we found
in this project were: celebrating diversity through different activities on
campus, understating both sides of this issue and showing students the world
that is around them, at least on campus.
This is a fitting way to produce social change because our goal
is to provide solutions in our community for a major issue in our society. In
order to create a more culturally aware environment on campus, we hosted
different activities where students could share their cultures and learn the
importance of recognizing each other’s backgrounds. All the information
provided was accessible for students since we used social media to spread the
importance of this issue and the events on campus to spread our message.
This is a creative approach because we turned one of the biggest
problems of our generation (assuming stereotypes about others) into a reduced
scope that affects the community we belong to. We are not planning to eradicate
the problem, but to improve the roots of this issue by giving students the
space and platforms where they can learn to recognize each other’s differences
and build a stronger community on campus.
To get the ball rolling, we created surveys for international
and domestic students here at UNL. We used two different platforms, Facebook
posts, as well as printed copies. We received quite a few responses from students,
which gave us a reliable gage of the current comfort level between
international and American students. It seemed as if a lot of international
students said they were very comfortable here on campus, whether they just
wrote that down or they honestly felt that way, we were unsure. The surveys
were just the beginning; we had much more in store. We decided our next plan of
attack, in order to gain sufficient knowledge, as well as take action was to
set up a booth during UNL’s Culture Shock.
This is an event where international students set up booths
representing their home counties. At these booths, they handed out traditional
foods from their homeland and answered questions bystanders had about their
culture. We set up our own “International Initiative” booth. We provided Krispy
Kreme doughnuts for people walking by our booth to try. Surprisingly, many
international students had never had them before. Another big part of our plan
was to initiate a Pen Pal program. We decided this would be the perfect way to
build relationships across cultures. We went around gathering contact
information from students who were interested. Our goal was to get at least
fifty emails, twenty-five international students, and twenty-five domestic
students. At random, we matched an international student with an American
student and they had the option to contact one another. This way they were able
to learn about each other at their own pace, and hopefully, keep in touch.
Our last piece was a video we created encapsulating our
experience throughout the semester. A lot of the video was filmed during
Culture Shock, where we took numerous photos with students from across the
globe. We also have a couple interviews with students, talking about why
exploring cultures other than their own is important. This video was the
perfect way to bring our campaign together.
At Culture Shock our World
Map booth was very successful. Our group talked to many students, and made a
lot of connections. Stationed in the middle of the green space, our group had a
large world map sign taped down on one side of the table and fun facts and
memes on the other side. Cole took on the role of being photographer, and
caught the experience of Culture Shock by walking around and snapping photos.
The energy at Culture Shock was amazing as there were 44 different cultures at
the green space celebrating diversity. There were dancing tigers, a henna
booth, and a live band playing all types of different music. There were even a
couple student acts such as a Spanish dance club performance, and a ukulele
performance by an international student. At our booth one of the activities we
asked students to do was to trace their hand and write down their nationality,
as well as something they learned at Culture Shock. At the end of the day our
booth was overflowing with many posters, created not only by UNL students, but
also by many children who were also attending the event. It was really cool to
see that the outer Lincoln community was also apart of the celebration. A
common theme in the decorated posters was that culture is something to
celebrate, and that it brings people together.
Along with asking the students and children to decorate posters,
we also asked UNL students to sign up to participate in a Pen Pal program we
created.
As an incentive to get
students to sign up for the Pen Pal program, everyone in our group bought a
gift card to give out to four lucky students. The Pen Pal list was a way bigger
hit than we originally anticipated. Andrea has been sending out a couple
follow-up emails since the program has started making sure the Pen Pals don’t
run out of ideas to talk about and can still connect. Currently, we have 13 Pen
Pal pairs actively participating in this program.
We
had multiple visions when creating our commons campaign. Some of these visions
pulled through, while others fell a little short of our expectations. When
designing our proposal, we discussed the lack of cultural knowledge and
awareness among racially diverse groups, particularly on UNL’s campus.
We first discussed hosting cultural events
in the Nebraska Union. During these events we would design ways to make
learning about culture fun and relaxing but how would these one-time events
live on beyond that day? We needed to find a way to make a lasting impact on
the students attending UNL. This is when our pen-pal idea was born. If we could
find American and Internationally born students and pair them up they could
learn so much about one another; not only personal information but cultural
information, as well. We also created a Facebook page in an attempt to get
people interested in learning about cultures but it was difficult to get
conversations started and individuals involved. By switching from Facebook
conversation to creating a YouTube video, we have been able to reach the
millions of people who access YouTube every day.
Instead of hosting small events in the
Union, we made arrangements to host one large event that would, without a
doubt, allow us to reach hundreds of culturally diverse individual’s. Obtaining
permission to set up a booth during the Culture Shock campus event proved to be
a fantastic idea. There were over 50 students, just attending the culture
shock, interested in having a Pen Pal. Through emailing weekly discussion
questions to captivated students, we were able to help facilitate the
discussion between the Pen Pals. In spite of our attempt to eliminate the non-responsive students, by sending out a generic ‘are you still interested’
email, to all who signed up we still received feedback from students who were
unable to make contact with their partner. If given this opportunity again, we
would begin our Pen Pal search earlier so that students with non-responsive
partners could be paired up a second time with a new Pen Pal.
Our hope is that that this project leaves a
permanent impression on international relations between students, especially
the ones who participated in our Pen Pal campaign. We want UNL to be the
optimal destination for any and all international students wanting an American
education. The first step in obtaining this aspiration is by showing all
students how each culture is beautifully unique. Without opportunities,
knowledge cannot be gained, and without knowledge, we are left in a world of
wonder and ignorance.
Videos: On Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/275081212939597/
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