With globalization and increased calls for diversity in higher education, professionals offering student support services find themselves grappling to make their campuses more inclusive. Diversity in this context implies the coexistence of students from various cultures who may even speak different (non-English) languages at home. Diversity also implies the appreciation of the students’ many languages and the cultures they embody.
As a student advisor, career counselor or faculty member, how best can you promote diversity on your campus? How best can you support those students who need to be able to express themselves in languages other than English?
Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC), MA has been experimenting with a solution that is noteworthy. Even before COVID hit and developments around George Floyd awoke the nation’s race conscience, BHCC’s student advising office had seen the need to migrate to a support model that was truly multilingual. With over 100 countries and 75 languages represented on their campuses, the multilingual student advising staff thought it would be helpful to be able to support their students in the languages their students understood (to the extent possible anyways).
Common practice on US campuses is to offer all services (academic, career, social, etc.) in one language – English. BHCC defied this norm and started offering advising services to their students in the languages the students preferred.
What can we learn from BHCC about how to implement multilingual advising?
First, know your students. Do you know how many languages each of your students speak? Some offices on your campus may already be surveying your students. Why not band up with them so you can find out what languages (non-English) your students speak and therefore how many of those you may want to offer your services in?
Second, make environmental changes that promote multilingualism. A simple welcome board written in several languages can really make a difference in making a workspace appear multicultural and multilingual. Staff name tags could also say what languages the staff member speaks as a way to invite the student to use their language if they so prefer.
Third, consider translating some of your key information sources. Your website could have an in-built capability to translate information into several languages. This could help a student successfully perform a simple task such as registering for a class. Key pamphlets could also be written in several languages.
While many US campuses may not be as innately multicultural and multilingual as BHCC, in the quest for true diversity, one may still want to consider how best to lift the profile of languages other than English at one’s campus. It goes beyond hitting diversity quotas. It’s also, and importantly, about empowering the student to succeed. Helping a student navigate college life in a language they feel most comfortable with could mean the difference between them staying at your institution or leaving. This is because language is powerful. It not only is a mode of articulating one’s thoughts and feelings; it also forms a key part of a person’s identity and helps students make sense of their world and overcome challenges.
Unsure where to start in terms of promoting diversity on your campus? Eduology can help. It offers a range of professional development webinars that are geared toward empowering higher ed professionals so they can excel at their job of supporting students. Check out their fall/winter list of webinars here.