ADL Sponsors Anti-Bias Program Print E-mail
Written by Ashley Bagan   
Monday, 10 December 2007

Eyes closed, fifty students sit holding a white piece of paper.  They listen intently to the instructions coming from the voice in front of the room.  “Fold the paper in half…make a triangle out of the paper…fold it into quarters.”  All of the students receive the same directions from the same person.  However, when they open their eyes, the students are surprised to find that their piece of paper turned origami is a unique piece of art; it looks nothing like any of their classmates.

“We all come to campus with different histories, different backgrounds…How do we all get along on campus?”, asks Debbi Stogel, director of A Campus of Difference, a program of the Anti-Defamation League’s A World of Difference Institute that combats bigotry on campus.

Recently, college campuses across America have experienced an upsurge in hate crimes.  A noose found on a tree outside the black cultural studies center at the University of Maryland; a swastika spray-painted on a Jewish professors door at Columbia University. Although campuses are supposed to be a place of acceptance and learning, they have become a stage on which underlying prejudices are acted out.

A Campus of Difference works to counter this trend.  “Our basic program does not focus on one ‘ism,’ nor does it establish a hierarchy of which one ‘ism’ is more insidious than another.  The program is designed to help participants increase their self-awareness and learn to celebrate diversity,” says Stogel.

The program is available as a half-day, one, or two-day workshop.  It is led by two trainers, who, by design, are all diverse themselves, in hopes of reaching as many people in the room as possible. This also “sends a powerful message when two people who are very different get along and work together to send a unified message of peace,” says Stogel.

Throughout the day, students, faculty, and staff participate in activities and lessons that aim to promote awareness of diversity and to show the dangers that stem from prejudices. They study the Pyramid of Hate and Alliance, which illustrates how easily hate escalates and, also, how easily it can be stopped at every level; they participate in Concentric Circles, where trainers ask a series of questions concerning identity and the students rotate with every question, exposing them to a variety of backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs; they watch revealing videos and listen to audio tapes recording accounts of victims of hate crimes.  After all of these activities, the participants are split into small groups to discuss their impressions.

Mark Spergel, Director of Student Orientation and Freshman Year Incentive at Baruch College—the 7th most diverse college in the country—believes that A Campus of Difference promotes a more accepting, less violent campus environment. “Its not that there is not friction sometimes, but we address conflict by discussion, not by acting out.”  Spergel incorporates the program into the freshman orientation.  “Having this program delivers a message about how seriously we take the issue of diversity and lets students know what the culture is here, what the codes of conduct are, and how, in university, you explore things through dialogue.”

Students from Baruch College found the program to be very revealing. One student said, “What was most useful [about the program] was gaining knowledge about something that people don’t view as prejudice, but, in actuality, is very much so prejudice.”

Stogel says, “Once you are aware, you can never go back.”  Hopefully, by drawing awareness to underlying bigotry that exits today, campuses will become a place to celebrate diversity rather than a place to act out ignorance and hatred.
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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.
 
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