This is a guest blog post from faculty member Jon Mabee on his recent experience participating in a Mini Diversity workshop:

These workshops are an excellent opportunity to gain some great insight into how we can treat each other better as human beings. As we learn how to appreciate and respect each other in the many ways we’ve separated ourselves through social and cultural constructed differences and diverse backgrounds, we find that we have more in common as human beings than many of us can appreciate on a surface level. Whether that be a difference in gender, race, ethnicity, identity, love, or religion, ultimately, the more we understand about each other, the more likely it is that we’ll be both successful and responsible educators and members of our MSU communities. Dr. Martinez does a great job in tying both academic and practical so to not just think about the issues, but how we can address them in our everyday lives.

I would definitely recommend these workshops; they’re taught in such a way that encourages open dialogue about these issues and our experiences with them, rather than feel as if we’re being lectured to about how these things ‘should be’ perceived. By incorporating our own perspectives into the overall discussion, it also makes it feel as if we’re a part of the conversation, rather than outside of it.

Jon Mabee, Assistant Professor

Media, Journalism and Film