Today in DPC, myself and about 10 other students had a great discussion with visiting scholar Azie Dungey (star and creator of web series "Ask a Slave"--check it out, it's great!). We talked about race across campus and the importance of cultural competency** as a necessary component of education. We discussed last semester's racial tensions on campus sparked by events in Ferguson and NYC, and more local matters such as the rope swing in North Woods. 

We talked about making cultural competency a portion of first-year orientation, part of the first-year and transfer seminar, or part of a yearly campus day set aside for discussion about what it means to be a part of the St. Mary's community. 

**When I say cultural competency, I mean being able to comfortably and effectively communicate and interact with people from different ethnic backgrounds, races, religions, socio-economic backgrounds, etc. 

Reasons these things matter:

St. Mary's prides itself on being a welcoming and accepting community to all, but it doesn't feel that way for all students, particularly minorities.

The events of last semester, mainly through Yik Yak, opened people's eyes that we have, in some ways, lost sight of the St. Mary's Way and need it back real bad.

St. Mary's can be that accepting and open place we all fell in love with, it just needs some redirection.

We do not live in a post-racial society.

Some tangible ideas myself and other students at the forum had:

organize a St. Mary's Day, a day set aside for community discussion and reflection (we used to have this annually!)

urge the administration and faculty to work cultural competency into the curriculum with the anticipated strategic plan that will be written in the next year or so

create more space for dialogue among the community. There is already good programming that takes place on important topics like race across campus, we just need more than the regular crowd to come out to them!

working with coordinators of first-year orientation to work some more meaningful programs and discussions about cultural competency into the already great program