Holloway Challenges E&H Community to Plant Seeds of Change
Holloway shared his mission to assemble an exploratory group of students, faculty and staff on campus who, over the next six months to one year, will research, study, propose and possibly implement an intensive effort called the Intergroup Dialogues Project (IDP).
This year’s overall theme focused on the idea of home by asking what it would take for Emory & Henry to become a community in Southwest Virginia that is truly welcoming, a place where everyone can find “home.”
The IDP is a social justice education program that was developed at the University of Michigan in the late 1980’s that helps students develop intergroup relations skills, to aid them in preparing to live and work in an increasingly diverse world. The program places a strong emphasis on the sharing of personal stories. IDP’s peer-led model allows participants to teach and learn from each other’s lived experiences of privilege, oppression and difference.
“The goal of these efforts is for individuals to seek to understand and learn from one another, versus arguing a point,” said Holloway. “This is tough work that won’t necessarily result in differing sides finding agreement, but at the least understanding.”
Holloway comes to Emory & Henry from Lehman College at the City University of New York, where he served as dean of student affairs since 2004. While there he developed an innovative approach to the campus’s orientation and transition programs, created a peer-educator program focused on developing employment opportunities for students and assembled a team in the development of on-going support for the LGBTQA community. He also founded, developed and launched the Urban Male Leadership Program, which is focused on providing support services for Black and Latino males. And he appointed a divisional team tasked with designing, developing and implementing strategic campus-wide Title IX educational efforts.
MLK Day at Emory & Henry College is coordinated by the MLK Day Planning Team and sponsored by the Office of Spiritual Life.
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