UCI Extension Puts Accent on Ethnic Training : Education: The program, the first of its kind in the nation, seeks to prepare night school students for cultural diversity.

A teacher learning to be an English-as-a-second-language instructor needs a thorough understanding of a wide variety of ethnic cultures and their differences. But does a hazardous-materials specialist? Or a land-use planner? A real estate investor?

Melvin E. Hall, UC Irvine’s dean of extended education programs, thinks so. And he’s done something about it.

UCI Extension has launched the first program of its kind in the nation: requiring students in all 41 certificate programs to take at least one three-hour session emphasizing cultural diversity in today’s increasingly competitive workplace.

“No matter what field you are in today, whether it’s emergency response, health care or engineering, anyone who is in a professional field involving other people--either directly or indirectly--needs to have some appreciation for the impacts of culture,” Hall said.

Today’s engineers, architects and computer software designers, for example, have to realize that they are creating things to be used by people of different cultures, Hall said. In the event of a toxic spill or disaster, hazardous materials specialists and public safety officers need to be able to communicate the dangers to people who speak a different language.

Across the country, colleges and universities have been revamping their curricula in recent years to include themes of diversity, sex and cultural understanding, as well as a global view of history and society. The push has provoked heated debate, most notably at Stanford University and UC Berkeley, where faculty questioned the value and intellectual rigor of such courses. Critics assailed the movement as an effort to force “political correctness” on the classroom.

In the fall of 1990, UCI began requiring entering freshmen to complete two multicultural courses, one exploring the culture or history of U.S. minority groups, the other aimed at foreign nations or cultures.

That undergraduate requirement prompted Hall and his staff to decide they must do more to prepare their night school students for the swiftly changing ethnic face of Orange County, where the Latino population has doubled in the past decade and the number of people of Asian origin has jumped nearly 120%.

Since most of their students are working folks seeking professional advancement, Hall hopes to have an immediate impact on society where it counts.

“The people who really influence what happens to youngsters and adults out there are the people who take our courses,” Hall said. “We don’t have the CEOs . . . but we have their staffs, the people who write the procedures and carry out company policies.”

Multicultural training isn’t new to college continuing education. But it has been relegated mainly to programs for teachers of non-English-speaking students, as well as managers and human resource specialists who deal with state and federal regulations against discrimination.

“There is not much being done at the continuing education level,” said Robert W. Comfort, who as the incoming president of the National University Continuing Education Assn. has commissioned a task force to bring issues of sex and diversity into extended education.

“Mel Hall’s operation is an exception,” said Comfort, associate dean of the University of Pittsburgh’s College of General Studies. “No one has gone as far as Mel has in his certificate program.”

UCLA Extension officials have tapped the UCI team to explore making similar changes to many of the more than 4,500 programs they offer.

“UCI is breaking ground for all the rest of us,” said Joyce Manson, head of instructor development for UCLA Extension. “We’d like to see it in all of our certificate programs.”

Hall is adamant that there is nothing “politically correct” about these courses.

“We do not want to impose a particular philosophy, and we have backed off the notion of sensitivity training,” Hall said. “People have adverse reactions to being told how they should feel about something, and we didn’t want to be in the position of preaching to professionals.”

Instead, the emphasis is that Orange County is a more diverse place than it used to be. In a county of 2.4 million people, 35% now belong to ethnic minorities. International trade is on the rise, and experts predict that women and minorities will make up more than 80% of the new entrants to the nation’s work force by the next century.

“If you want to be a good, successful professional, doing that in Orange County is very different now than it was 20 years ago,” Hall said. “People need to understand that the days are long gone when you can use a football analogy to explain something and expect most of the class to understand you.”

Different cultures value different things, and misunderstandings can arise as a result, Hall said.

Ann F. Ridley, program manager for UCI Extension, said a simple “hello” wave of the hand is viewed by some cultures as a threatening gesture. It is easy, she said, for people with the best of intentions to create deep-seated fears and mistrust among those they intended to befriend.

By June, an estimated 1,000 students in UCI’s continuing education certificate programs will have taken a three-hour class on diversity. So far, 70% of the students surveyed have said it was a valuable use of class time, according to anthropologist and consultant Olivia de la Rocha, who was hired as an independent evaluator of the program.

Those who criticize the classes say it is too hard to weave what are essentially social issues into courses such as electronics or contracts and grants.

“They say it doesn’t mesh well with the course, or students say, ‘Please, don’t take away this class time and devote to another issue, however important,’ ” De la Rocha said.

Gina Laroff was dismayed recently to learn that a guest speaker would discuss diversity in her paralegal class at UCI Extension.

“I thought, ‘Oh God, I don’t even want to go,’ ” said Laroff, a 30-year-old legal secretary for a Newport Beach law firm. “I’m not a prejudiced person, and I didn’t want to sit there and listen to people telling me how I should feel about other cultures. Because I don’t think I have a problem.”

The class turned out to be her favorite of the entire quarter. “It gave me a good feeling that here was someone trying to do something about bigotry,” Laroff said. “People take for granted that everyone does things in the same way. But even in Anglo-Saxon culture, families do things differently.”

Dolores Cole, director of affirmative action for USC, is one of several diversity consultants brought in to teach the diversity classes. She and others try to tailor the material to the specific course.

For students in a class dealing with contracting and real estate, for example, Cole pointed out that mortgage rejection rates are high in minority areas.

“If your area is increasingly minority, particularly black and Hispanic, and these groups are experiencing a much higher rejection rate to get loans to buy your product, that will impact you,” she told the class.

She encouraged class members to share their own experiences about cultural differences.

“Some of them already discovered that many first-generation Asians don’t like the houses you so commonly find in Southern California today--the kind with high ceilings and big windows that let a lot of light in,” Cole said. “They want more wall space. . . . They feel that evil spirits will be allowed in. . . . That makes a difference when you are building a house or trying to sell one. You need to know your market.”

Doug Bowen, another UCI guest lecturer on diversity, told students in a hazardous-materials course about differing cultural ideas about people’s relationship to nature. Other societies also have different ideas about rules and regulations.

He told them about a Korean researcher hired at a Silicon Valley firm who observed the rules about handling caustic materials while others were in the lab. But when he worked alone late one night, he did not wear protective gear and injured himself.

Bowen said the firm couldn’t understand why he broke the rules, and the researcher didn’t understand why company officials were so concerned, since it was his own fault that he had hurt himself.

“You see, if you’re injured in Korea in an industrial accident, there is no compensation,” Bowen said. “The workers there have a very different view of the danger of working. They assume the risk.”

The dean isn’t banking that the program will erase prejudice.

“But hopefully it will help people examine the implications of their behavior,” Hall said. “Before something happens, outside the crisis, if we can do something to develop people’s awareness of the implications of their actions, then we have had an impact.”

Tips for Multicultural Encounters

In Orange County’s polyglot society, people are encountering others from distant countries with different language and cultural traditions. Gestures easily understood among people of one cultural tradition may mean something entirely different, and derogatory, to people of other backgrounds.

Here are some general guidelines:

First Meetings

Handshakes: Wait to see whether the other person extends a hand, and then use only the same pressure they do.

Eye contact: Seen as a way of establishing trust in the mainstream U.S. culture, making eye contact is a sign of disrespect in some cultures. Don’t make judgments if your glance is not returned.

Touching: People of different cultures have varied practices about touching others. Some perceive a typical U.S. citizen’s pat on the shoulder as rude. Allow the other person to set the lead as to how familiar they wish to be.

Greetings: A formal “good morning” or “good afternoon” are more likely to be understood. The customary “How are you?” may be taken too literally.

Exchanging business cards: This is a serious ritual in many cultures, and the card itself symbolizes the person and their company. Read the card when it is given and acknowledge it with respect.

Space: Americans generally stand about the distance required for an extended handshake. Some Asian cultures keep a greater distance, that needed for bowing in respect. In other cultures, people stand much closer together.

Gestures

Avoid hand gestures whenever possible. Commonplace gestures such as a thumbs up or an OK sign mean negative things to people of other cultures.

Communication

With people whose English is limited, avoid jargon or slang.

Speak in simple, short sentences.

Speak slowly, not loudly.

Source: Center for Teaching International Relations at the University of Denver.

Los Angeles Times