2.4 Cultural Competency- University Community Members as Guests

It is a privilege to achieve learning objectives in support of your community. Working with community partners creates an important consequential space, and your instructor has determined this particular environment will help you think more critically about audience, writing strategies, rhetorical context, composing resources, project management, and (if applicable) team work. All of these are components of technical and professional writing environments. Partners invite us into their work through their collaboration with your professor and you and/or your team. This invitation transfers considerable responsibility to you as a member of the WSU community.

Part of this responsibility is recognizing your privilege as someone pursuing a degree at WSU and exhibiting cultural competence while engaging with partners. As Kowalewski et al. (2010) noted “Being culturally sensitive means having the capacity to function effectively in and with other cultures. It is valuing and respecting diversity and being sensitive to cultural differences.” Your personal positionalities are your own, and while they inform who you are and how you interact with the world, they should not impact your ability to do the work of this project. In professional environments you’ll be surrounded by clients, colleagues, and communities that may not share the same values and/or perspectives as you. In this community engagement project, the scope of your project means you will not change the mission or values of an organization (deficit mindset). But, you can learn strategies to adapt to new environments and recognize and value difference during this project (asset-based mindset). There are so many aspects of this project that are important, and it is critical to understand your professor recognizes this as an additional learning experience built into the work of community-engaged learning.

Partners work with us for many reasons, including but not limited to their: investment in your success; hope that through partnership, they can share their mission with a wider audience;  positive experience conducting prior work with similar courses; appreciation of the new ideas students bring to the table; similar educational experience; recognition of the impact the work can have. We are frank in recognizing that not all projects will be “camera ready” at the end of the semester, and one great thing about engaging with our community partners over extended periods is the iterative design students conduct. One team’s project can be picked up in a subsequent semester by an intern or an advanced technical writing student and shaped and/or revised for use by the partner. This iterative design work (remember our design thinking principles from Chapter 2.3) is critical to the health of long term partnerships—and your success as a student within this specific class during this semester. This means your instructor’s relationship with partners is probably longer than their relationship with you. Instructors talk with partners often, and we trust them. Please be mindful of the collaborative work your partner and instructor have done to build this learning environment for you.

If you’re participating in direct-service activities (e.g. working directly with clients on-site), your partner organization may require training before you can begin your work, especially if you are interacting with a vulnerable population. Similarly, if you will be on-site, the community partner may also require background checks; your academic program may be able to subsidize the cost of required background checks.

Some partners have specific orientations towards social issues, and these manifest in language. Be mindful and adapt to partners’ context and needs. For instance, if the organization mentions they use “person-first” language, be sure you not only understand what this means, but ensure this framework is also reflected in your project deliverables. If you have questions, reach out to your instructor and/or partner.

Finally, you are a representative of WSU; be mindful of our student code of conduct and our community standards. These standards apply even off campus if you are representing WSU and state broadly that “All students are expected to contribute to a safe, healthy and inclusive campus.”

Wrapping up Chapter Two

In all our work together, we strive to build a safe, healthy, and inclusive community. The principles discussed in this chapter touch on different topics but are all components of building your learning environment—of constructing your consequential learning context. In the next chapter, we’ll provide further discussion and reflection on topics such as audience, getting situated in the work and research, and developing genres that are usable for the partner and appropriate for your course. We’ll also provide strategies for managing disruptions as you proceed through the project and share tips for wrapping up and delivering the final materials.