Week 6- Moak: Multicultural Student Affairs @ SMU

Activities:

• AARO events (Resource Fair and Lunches)
• KIPP outreach
• CONNECT Mentor/Mentee pairing
• Assessment Presentation development
• Dallas Faces Race Webinar

Reflection:
Pairing mentors and mentees is much more difficult than I ever thought it could be. I was able to create the guidelines for matching, and my theory was very simple: separate everyone out by school (Business, Engineering, Humanities, etc), then match them all by interests. The other caveat was only 2-3 people from the same school could be in a group. Groups have 4-5 members each. I didn't create a stipulation for sex/gender because it was not on the application, and the girls GREATLY outnumbered the boys, so I decided not to worry about it too much. After several false starts, I finally got groups set the way I wanted them. The other concern I had was the groups not being culturally diverse. I didn't want the groups to be all Asian American, or all Latino/Latina. I thought that might make matching even more complicated, and my bigger concern was making sure all the business kids weren't in the same group or all the humanities kids weren't in the same group. (SIDE NOTE: there is a big loyalty/spirit issue at SMU. Students tend to say "Oh, I go to Meadows (Arts)" or "I go to Lyle (Engineering)" even though they all go to SMU. Students are more loyal to their specific school, so there is a big push within the division to mix things up, for lack of a better term) Luckily, all the groups ended up very balanced in regards to self-identified race.

The KIPP kids have been wonderful. Last week I didn't really know too much about the program, but I had lunch with them the other day, and I got to learn a lot. KIPP stands for Knowledge Is Power Program, and its a network of charter schools in poorer neighborhoods that was started in Houston. KIPP is having a summer college program here at SMU for rising seniors. Since I've been here, Creston and I have been doing diversity workshops with them, and generally hanging out with them to answer any questions they might have about SMU or college in general. They are all so smart, determined, and insightful; and they give me hope for future generations.

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to attend the Dallas Faces Race Webinar. It was a presentation about the different manifestations and definitions of racism in the workplace. We had really great conversations about how racism still exists today and ways that we can address it. The conversations were particularly interesting for me because in my practicum site as well as my assistantship, I'm the minority. I'm still processing some of the conversations, but I hope to take those perspectives with me over the course of the next few years.

The last thing I'm working on right now is an office-wide assessment presentation. Program assessment is something new OMSA is going to try this year, and I have the lovely task of explaining what assessment is, why it's important, and how to get started on that process. I'm extremely grateful for the assessment class from the fall right now.

This is my last week at SMU (I leave the office at 12:00 on Wednesday). It's been such a rewarding experience working here for the past 2 weeks, and I know I have good connections to fall back on during my job search in the next few months.

-Liz