Defining culture and its impact on communication, conflict and decision-making will be the topics of discussion on Tuesday night in the “Understanding Culture & Cultural Differences” workshop held by Aggies to Aggies (A2A).
Two members of A2A will conduct the workshop on Tuesday, November 1 at 5 p.m. in Rudder 701. A2A is a peer diversity education program under the department of Multicultural Services, comprised of five undergraduates and one graduate assistant, according to Dear Aunaetitrakul, diversity education specialist in the department of multicultural services.
“For Aggies to Aggies, the main purpose is to go out there and have conversations with folks and increase awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion,” said Aunaetitrakul.
The peer-educators are focused on creating discussion and planning activities to teach students about how to better understand a broad range of cultures at Tuesday’s workshop. The topics of discussion will include comparing individualistic and collective cultural views.
“It will mainly be discussion-based. We love to hear what students have to say and get different perspectives on culture,” said Rowshana Kero, technology management sophomore and peer diversity educator said. “We are going to give [students] the chance to interact with each other and see the crosses between different cultures to better understand cultural upbringings.”
Kero notes the importance of understanding different cultures because this is a skill necessary in university and beyond graduation. Students at A&M are exposed to roommates, classmates and peers with diverse cultural upbringings.
“In the workforce, you’re also going to be exposed to different types of cultures,” Kero said. “It’s very important to understand their behavior that’s linked to cultural upbringing. You have to be understanding of it.”
By the end of Tuesday’s workshop Candice Idlebird sociology graduate, A2A graduate assistant and peer diversity educator, hopes for students to be asking ‘What can we do as Aggies to make this a more inclusive environment?’
“Aggies come from a wide variety of places. I think we are that ideal — like salad bowl – we are different people from different places,” Idlebird said. “Everybody has those particular differences and I think for us, because we have an Aggie community where we traditionally bring everybody in and become a part of one community and family, it is important to just be understanding of everybody.”
This fall semester has been a busy journey for A2A, as they are broadening their activities within the organization by conducting various peer-educated workshops, according to Kero. The month of November will hold around six different cultural diversity workshops.
