The National Dialogue on Race, a campus-wide community discussion about race in America, hosted by the Intercultural Facilitators, returns for its 10th year this Thursday, Nov. 2, from 5:30-7 p.m. in The Hill, on the fourth floor in the Malone Student Center. This event is also coming back to campus for the first time since 2019 and hopes to open dialogue and challenge the community to think about things like race and what it means for LMU to be an anti-racist institution.
Henry Ward, assistant dean for Ethnic and Intercultural Services (EIS) shares how the program started in 2013 after a national call from Tufts University in honor of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. “We started this program at LMU, 10 years ago, when Tufts University issued a call to colleges and universities all over the country to convene a dialogue on race,” said Ward. “The event has always been a discussion on race in America and is led by our Intercultural Facilitator (IF) program. In 2013, our IF program was just starting to come into its own and when Tufts put out the call, we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare because our students came back in August. I remember saying, hey we can make this happen and let’s put something together because this is something we need to be part of.”
The first National Dialogue on Race discussion brought up a lot of emotions and left participants with questions and wanting next steps. “It is an opportunity to come together and have a dialogue around race and racism,” said Ward. “It was really important, after the first dialogue, students got a chance to bear witness not only how racism was impacting them in the community but also how racism was impacting them here on this campus. It was an eye opener for me, along with other staff and faculty who were present to bear witness to it. I remember it being very emotional and I think in many ways it was therapeutic for those who got the chance to share because it seemed like it was something that had been bottled up on the inside for some time.”
Today’s version of the event is set up to make the dialogue not just a venting session; participants will have open discussion on race, what race is and its implications, and leave with a plan of action moving forward. That was the key takeaway from the first event and has helped develop this program into what it is today. “This has allowed students to strategize next steps and developed the voices of our students so that they knew it wasn’t just the telling of the story, it was the practical steps that they could take to address some of the issues that they had identified,” said Ward. “It’s a proactive way of talking about the issues of race and racism on campus and demystifies the notion of what it means to be an anti-racist institution.”
The event will be facilitated by Brandon McKinney, Xitlali Garcia, and Cathy Frias, who are all current IFs and who have taken both the intercultural practicum course taught by Ward and Olivia Rodriguez, IF program coordinator in EIS. In the course, students gain intercultural knowledge, awareness, and advanced mediation and facilitation skills while developing strategies for organizational change in multiethnic settings. Students critically examine how privilege and power impact social outcomes and to understand the role of students as agents of change for social justice. Students are taught to use the framework “Understand yourself, to better understand others.” It’s this coursework that serves as a framework and introduction to becoming an IF. The program takes insights and training students receive in the practicum class to the next level, which allows them to become highly skilled in the principles of facilitation and helps them to develop into leaders who are highly effective in facilitating peers in critical cultural conversations.
Cathy Frias ’26, is an animation major and serves as one of the current Intercultural Facilitators who will be facilitating the National Dialogue on Race. For Frias, this work feels so important because “we are often in our own bubbles, feeling comfortable in settings where perspectives are not challenged or reconsidered,” said Frias. “By having a dialogue that encourages us to step out of that bubble and view it from another angle, we can better understand the larger community that we are a part of and navigate its barriers.” And for an Intercultural Facilitator, it’s these conversations that remind them that they are not alone, they too are students dealing with and experiencing some of the same things as the participants they are helping to lead through this dialogue. “We are not alone in students’ efforts to create a more culturally conscious community. Hearing from someone who is attending your same classes, going to those same club meetings, and sleeping in those same residence halls makes the conversation feel more intimate and hopefully more empowering as you address the ideas that are applicable to the student body.”
The work and development of being a peer-to-peer facilitator connecting and engaging students in conversations on topics is not an easy one. As Frias describes, “The work that I have done as an IF has prepared me to engage in conversations that might feel “uncomfortable” to have, but need immediate attention and need a constructive approach,” said Frias. “Especially when storytelling and creating work meant to inform and engage large audiences, we consistently need to make sure that it is inclusive and aware of its representations.”
For Rodriguez, as the IF program coordinator she sees this as an opportunity for our community to be change agents. “These issues are salient year after year, so this year is the perfect opportunity for us to check in on how far we’ve come as a campus, particularly since we’ve declared our commitment to anti-racism,” said Rodriguez. “I hope the community leaves the event feeling invigorated to keep the conversation going. Thursday is the start to conversation, to listen to others’ experiences, and reflect on our own experiences shaped by race and racism. I hope people lean into the discomfort that can show up in this type of dialogue and then lean into their own roles as change agents moving forward.”
