Elainna Simpson

Honors Seminar

Dr. Kohlhaas

11/5/2020

Cultural Competency Reading: Individual Response Paper

Cultural competency has been central to our education in the honors program and has been

vital within our project of improving Loras College’s campus safety. Cultural competency is made of

several important factors that all hinge on respect and acceptance of someone no matter their culture.

It includes continuous learning and appreciation of different cultures that can inform someone’s life and

work. One of the first steps is to eradicate any beliefs of ethnocentrism and the white savior complex.

Without this first step, people may consider their culture as “right” and attempt to “fix” other cultures

around them so that they emulate their culture. Next, a person needs to have an honest consideration

of the privilege they might have due to their cultural status and compare that to others’ lack of privilege.

This can demonstrate the inequalities within many social systems that favor the majority culture. It is

also important for someone to know cultures other than their own, this is a continuous learning process

and can only be improved upon. Cultural competency hopes to create inclusion by providing everyone

with equal contribution and equitable opportunities.

My honors project focuses on improving student, faculty, and staff’s experiences of safety on

the Loras College campus. Throughout our project, cultural competency has been at the forefront as we

decided how best to gain data, create a change, and enact that change. We started with the

understanding that there are many different cultures on campus, but together they may create a larger

culture of those who do not feel safe on campus. To pinpoint exactly what was making this culture feel

unsafe, we created a campus-wide survey. An understanding of cultural competency helped us to shape

this survey to be inclusive and provide numerous times for people to discuss their thoughts and

experiences. Since we are active members within our community, we thought a traditional service or in-

person learning experience may be affected by our bias and not allow people to feel comfortable

sharing their thoughts on campus safety. For this reason, we decided on an anonymous survey where

people could feel secure disclosing their thoughts on safety. After a conversation with campus safety

about our results, it became clear that most people on campus were unaware of the services they

provide. We decided on creating a social media campaign to bring awareness to the services campus

safety provides and the people who provide them. We hope this can create more of a community at

Loras that includes the safety officers and allows students to feel more comfortable seeking out services.

Since the data from the survey also showed several sexual assault and harassment issues, we thought

fostering this community may help students be more comfortable reporting incidents and receive the

help they may need.

Service work is a large part of the honors program because it allows students to go out and

experience situations and people they may never have met. This hopefully will lead to reflection and

continued cultural competency from these students to create real changes for the community and

within the student’s own life. The honors program at Loras speaks to the pros of service-learning in the

article “Why Service-Learning Is Bad” (Eby, 1998). The author discusses how service-learning should

bring together the interests and cultures of all stakeholders involved. This is largely demonstrated

through the honor’s program’s emphasis on reciprocity and having honest communication where both

the community and volunteers are being heard and understood. Another point the author makes is that

reflection is needed for those who do service-learning to truly benefit. The honors program places

importance on reflection and how we can use that to better inform the next time we serve. Lastly, the

article discusses how important it is to make any short-term impacts for these communities into long-

term impacts. Our projects through the honors program need to have a long term plan that can then
continue to support the community in need. Overall, it is clear that the Honors program fosters a

positive service-learning experience that teaches students the key foundations to continue positive

service-learning after Loras.

Service-learning is inherently connected to the Loras mission as well. It allows us to be active

learners as we go out and experience the world around us and use that knowledge to further our

understanding of the world. Service-learning, to be positive, requires reflective thinking that causes

critical thought on our own bias and the experiences of those around us. Also, service-learning can

foster our ability to be ethical decision-makers, since it allows us to see many viewpoints and use that

information to further justice. Lastly, since service-learning causes us to be aware of the cultures around

us and their differences, this allows us to move forward in life and become responsible contributors. It is

clear that service-learning aligns with the dispositions and mission of Loras College making its students

active learners, reflective thinkers, ethical decision-makers, and responsible contributors.

Service-learning and cultural competency closely aligns with my future after Loras as I pursue a

career as a clinical mental health counselor. It is important for me to be involved in social justice and

increasing awareness of mental health. I hope that I will work with underserved communities where it

will be important for me to learn through service. I will be working with people of many different

cultures and backgrounds so it is incredibly important for me to be culturally competent of a client’s

experiences and resources. It is my job to be aware of cultural differences within a clients’ willingness to

receive treatment and the value they place on mental health. My career depends on me to continue

what I have learned through the Honors program and the Loras mission to be reflective, to prioritize

reciprocity, to be an ethical decision-maker, and make responsible contributions to the communities

that I will serve.

 Reference
Eby, J. (1998). Why service-learning is bad.