The Summer of Friendship by Fire: A Doctoral Student Reminisces about Lessons in Diversity |
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| Authors: | Jane C Owen |
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| Institution: | Midwestern State University , |
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| Abstract: | The journey toward becoming a multicultural person is not easy and is never finished. As an educational administrator in a tri-cultural state, I felt comfortable that I was proficient in dealing with diversity. Only when I began a doctoral program at a major Texas university was my naivety exposed. I quickly learned that experience in working with diverse populations and the ability to relate effectively to people of different ethnic backgrounds were vastly different. The two years I spent deeply immersed in a multiculturally rich cohort of doctoral students changed me. My eyes were opened to injustices that I had never before seen as I vicariously experienced life through the eyes of the “other.” Today, I am a professor at a regional university. My experiences, focused through the lens of theory, are the basis for the message to my students. I have traveled the road before and can now point the way toward a broader definition of acceptance and tolerance. |
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