PULLMAN, Wash. – Faculty are invited to a culturalintelligence (CQ) workshop 8-10 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, in the Honors College
lounge. Space is limited; please RSVP by 5 p.m. Feb. 26 to Rachel Halverson, rachel_halverson@wsu.edu.
Washington State University Department of Foreign Languages
and Cultures is the sponsor of the workshop.
Pennylyn Dykstra-Pruim, a linguist with expertise in
cultural learning and a professor at Calvin College, will teach participants
about engaging students across cultural lines in a productive way.
Intercultural learning theories are at the heart of the CQ
approach, said Rachel Halverson, associate professor of German.
“(CQ) is learning how to navigate your world and enter other
people’s worlds with great sensitivity and awareness of both their culture and
your own,” she said.
The way people approach cultural learning has changed, she
said. For example, when she first learned about German culture, the focus was
on learning facts about what the Germans did and did not do and following suit while
she lived in their country.
“When Germans meet on the street they always shake hands. Be
sure you do that,” Halverson said she was told.
But CQ is more than the superficial actions of being a
polite person in a different culture, she said.
“It is really … reflecting on what we bring to the cultural
equation,” she said. “How can I more sensitively interact with someone who
comes from a different cultural environment that I do?”
As a foreign language professor, Halverson said CQ helps her
prepare her students for interacting with native German speakers. But she said
WSU employees in general can benefit from CQ because of the diversity of people
they come into contact with on a university campus.
“It really serves a purpose of helping us enter a different
world,” she said. And Dykstra-Pruim includes the importance of language to accessing
cultures other than our own, Halverson said.
