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A call for cultural competency training

Much has already been expressed about the recent Black Justice League protest, but the backlash over the mandated cultural competency training has really surprised me. I understand that some of the demands, like removing Wilson’s name from campus buildings, are controversial to say the least. But I honestly thought that basic faculty and staff cultural competency training would not be nearly so contentious.

That’s why I was shocked when I read on the University Press Club’s live coverage that University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 “disagrees with mandatory cultural competency training.” He claimed he can’t force it on the faculty and that its effectiveness is highly questionable. And while I realize that both of these factors may be true, his unwillingness to vocally support the concept baffles me because mandatory cultural competency training is a low-cost way to potentially make a big impact on the student experience.

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Cultural competency training can come in many forms. But from talking to others about their expectations and from what I know about other faculty trainings (including those involving sexual harassment), I assume it would basically consist of a couple of hours where faculty are led through exercises that help them recognize how their own backgrounds might lead to biases in the classroom. More importantly, such training would hopefully include potential ways that our professors can handle both their own biases and those of students as well. Professors wouldn’t be forced to alter their behavior but would rather simply be exposed to the tools needed to react differently should they choose to. In all likelihood, these few hours won’t even be an annual occurrence, but probably only a refresher every three to five years or so. A couple of hours every few years is a very small sacrifice in terms of time and effort.

Though I recognize that the effectiveness of such programs is questionable, I can’t help but think that they would at least make some difference, or at the very least, they couldn’t hurt. I assume some professors have biases that this training will not do anything to check. I also believe that some professors are acutely aware of how their own identities can color their teaching and have already educated themselves on how best to minimize the effects of their own background. For both of these groups, the training will likely not be effective, though perhaps the latter group might learn a few more helpful tools. But I also assume there is a large middle group of professors; those who do not want their own backgrounds to affect the classroom, but as of now cannot avoid unintentionally doing so. Or there are those who do not want this negative influence, are aware of it in themselves or other students, but lack the resources and knowledge to do something about it. For both of these types of faculty, a cultural competency training could drastically affect their teaching for the better. And given the relatively low time and effort cost, if there is even a small benefit to these professors, the training will have been worth it.

President Eisgruber should not force this training on the faculty, as he has acknowledged he cannot under the current system anyway. Princeton has a self-governing faculty and some degree of self-control is important. But, President Eisgruber could do much more to encourage passing the cultural competency trainingand voicing strong support would be an important start. The faculty has undertaken self-imposed training before, most recently with the sexual harassment training that Professor Ruha Benjamin highlighted during the protest. Such training is imperative both for liability issues as well as the potentially huge impact it can have on individual students. Some professors might think cultural competency matters less in certain fields, like STEM. But professor-student classroom interactions have a huge impact, so it is essential to be aware of the effects of one’s own background. And while it might impact research less heavily, professors at Princeton are both researchers and teachers. They should take their responsibilities as teachers seriously.

The Princeton Open Campus Coalition argued that “requiring cultural competency training for faculty threatens to impose orthodoxies on issues.” I fail to see how that is true when it does not impose any action other than to sit in on a training to be exposed to other ideas, something the group itself seems to support. It is nothing like communist “reeducation programs” as they imply; there is no punishment should one choose to completely ignore the entire training.

The agreement President Eisgruber made with the BJL protestors is simply that President Eisgruber “will write to Dean of the Faculty Deborah Prentice to arrange a discussion on cultural competency training,” which is essentially nothing concrete. However, President Eisgruber ought to do more: he should be actively encouraging the faculty to impose this self-required training. There is just too much potential benefit with so little cost. Why wouldn’t we at least try as a community to see if we can improve students’ educations and lives in this way, before denouncing it outright?

Marni Morse is a politics major from Washington, D.C. She can be reached at mlmorse@princeton.edu.

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