11097

11097

General Session - Conference Presentation Only (no formal paper)

Understanding Diversity: An Online Staff Development Program
Chris Rubio, Central Oregon Community College, Bend, OR, USA, crubio@cocc.edu Karen Roth, Central Oregon Community College, Bend, OR, USA, kroth1@cocc.edu

This session presents a model for diversity education in an online format. The presenters created this program in response to the need for more accessible ways to participate in diversity training. While not meant to replace the valuable experience of face-to-face dialogue about diversity issues, this venue allows for the participation by those who might otherwise be unable to attend in a face-to-face format. The six-week course is developed around six modules which focus on the intersections of cultural identities, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religion/spirituality. The model blends the best of face-to-face diversity education with the flexibility of online instruction, utilizing interactive exercises, readings, and dialogue all within an online environment.

Originally developed and offered both at the University of California, Davis and American River College in Sacramento, we are currently working to offer it to interested staff and faculty at Central Oregon Community College.

Our goal in offering this session is to demonstrate how staff development can be offered in an online format. This session should particularly benefit those who are involved in diversity education, training, staff development, and/or teaching.

We believe this session best fits the "workshop" format. We will present an overview of our staff development course, sharing the course outline, sample readings, discussion forum topics, and more. After an overview of our course, we will welcome questions.

Brief bio of presenters: Chris Rubio is a full-time faculty member in the Humanities department at Central Oregon Community College. She has been teaching both face-to-face and online courses since 1998. She taught English at American River College from 1988 - 2009 as a full-time faculty member before joining the faculty at Central Oregon Community College. She holds a Master’s degree in English and a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism.

Karen Roth is the Director of Multicultural Activities at Central Oregon Community College. Before coming to COCC, she worked as the Coordinator of Diversity Education at the University of California, Davis from 1998 until 2006. She holds a Master’s degree in Counseling and a Bachelor’s degree in Education.

Intermediate, Advanced diversity training, online, staff development