The University of West Florida (UWF) recently created an online course that provides high school students and adults with tools to tackle inclusivity and diversity issues within the workplace and community.
The UWF Innovation Institute worked alongside chief diversity officer and vice president of academic engagement at UWF, Dr. Kim LeDuff, to create the Cross-Cultural Competency course, which focuses on the concepts of awareness, acceptance and respect. It is a free, non-credit online class that on typically takes participants 12-15 hours to complete, according to the course’s website.
“It is beneficial for anyone who wants to improve their ability to speak and engage across difference,” said LeDuff.
The course was created after LeDuff first developed a cross-cultural competency certificate program that was offered through the human resources department at UWF. LeDuff recruited faculty and staff to develop courses that would count toward a 12-hour certificate program. To LeDuff’s surprise, 90 people completed the program on UWF’s campus within its first year.
Due to the program’s popularity and repeated requests for opening the program to a broader audience, the program was transformed into an online course.
“If you look at the nightly news right now, you see that there is lots of cross-cultural conflict, whether it’s issues of politics, immigration, race relations and the thing is, those are actually teachable moments,” said LeDuff. “People don’t realize that when our cultures collide, very often that’s the time when we can learn about ourselves and learn about other people.”
According to a description provided by UWF, the course “takes a conversational approach to sometimes sensitive subjects and aims to help those who participate understand and respect one another as well as function in diverse environments encountered in the workplace, the classroom or in social settings.”
