Embracing Collaboration Across Difference

A culturally competent community member will recognize the diversity and dimensions of power and privilege in work styles and communication. This includes seeking to understand the impact and influence of our own norms and values of communication and collaboration on individuals and communities. Growth in this domain results in increased capacity to communicate and collaborate with people whom we disagree.

 

Luke and Kiah - Growing Self Awareness

Luke and Kiah are close friends and have known each other for more than five years. Kiah has deliberated for a few months about how to give Luke some difficult feedback and decides to invite him to lunch to have a frank conversation. Kiah shares with Luke that she has seen a pattern in his behavior that is aggressive and intimidating. Kiah describes how Luke acts among their other friends, servers at restaurants, customer service professionals or folks they encounter on campus or around town.

Craig – Leaning into Discomfort

Craig has committed to examining his unconscious biases, and over the past couple months, he has tried to maintain mindfulness about his interactions with others. Through his meditations, he begins to recognize a pattern of avoiding people who have diverse gender expressions. Craig is able to identify his feelings of anxiousness and unease that result in frenetic behavior on his part when walking through campus, shopping or engaging in various daily activities.

Terry and Chris – Allowing Multiple Paths

Terry and Chris are senior custodial supervisors in the athletic department. They recently completed a bulk hire of new custodial staff and are amidst orienting the new staff to their roles and expectations. Within the first few months, Terry and Chris begin to experience tension with the new staff member as they are frustrated with the inflexibility of the informal policies and protocols that guide their work.

Priscilla – Finding New Paths to Resolution

Priscilla is the manager of the College of Engineering Human Resources office. In response to a 360 evaluation that revealed numerous significant interpersonal conflicts, Priscilla has initiated and is leading a conflict resolution process for her team. Priscilla hopes to transform her office culture in which current employees are frustrated and unhappy. Pricilla hopes to mediate potentially high rates of attrition in the near future.

Carl, Sean, and Miguel – Opening Up to Emotions

Carl and Sean are both coordinators in the central budget and planning office. As a pair, they approach their supervisor, Miguel, to share concerns about patterns of emotion they find distracting and unprofessional in the department staff meetings. Carl and Sean, who identify as men, assert that their colleagues, mostly women, have expressions of emotion that they perceive to derail conversations. They believe emotions should be mediated so the team meetings can be focused on work.

Dan – Making Time to Think in New Ways

Dan is an Associate Dean in the College of Science. Inspired by institutional calls for interdisciplinary collaboration, he campaigns heavily to inspire partnerships between the College of Science and the College of Liberal Arts. After an initial bout of enthusiasm, collaborations seem to have stalled and fizzled. Dan begins to explore with faculty and department chairs about the stopgap in their inquiry projects.

Travis & Regina – Negotiating Research Ethics with Design

Travis is a graduate student in ecology and interested in doing his thesis research on water levels and the salmon run in Southern Oregon. In consultation with his advisor, Regina, she asserts the importance of exploring his research questions through community-engaged research. Regina informs Travis of the historical tensions in the region related to his topic and advises that he learn from the missteps and oversights of previous field researchers in the area.

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