Participants developed a better understanding of cultural diversity at the From Cards to Cultural Understanding event on Tuesday.

The program was led by faculty and staff from the International Programs department and put on by Human Resource Services. The event was held to bolster cultural understanding and diversity training at NIU.

Heesun Majcher, director of the International Faculty and Student Office and a native of South Korea, led most of the event and introduced herself with her account of coming to America’s Midwest. By outlining her own struggles, Majcher established her own connection to diversity and why she is so passionate about cultural understanding and helping others to better handle diverse students and situations.

“I believe that empathy is something where you try to understand what the person may think and try to accept it’s their way of thinking and try to understand their condition and use that understanding to apply to the real situation,” Majcher said.

Also highlighted by Majcher were the keys to understanding empathetic situations.

“Maybe sometimes you may not sympathize with them,” Majcher said. “I think sympathy and empathy are sometimes the same and sometimes a little bit different so here, I think flexibility and patience can be very similar to an empathetic understanding of the situation.”

The event began with a brief introduction and then moved into the card game.

As the game began no one was allowed to talk or write, which illustrated how difficult overcoming a language barrier can be. Winners and losers moved around the different tables and confronted different rules.

Janet Giesen, instructional design coordinator for the faculty development and instructional design center, was one of the participants and indicated a common misconception about diversity.

Giesen has been teaching since 1986 and has seen a lot of diversity come and go through a classroom. That experience has shown Giesen the variety of diversity at NIU and why events like From Cards to Cultural Understanding are important to universities.

“You see diversity of students by ages and just now we’re dealing a lot with veterans returning from foreign wars and they have different needs, [and also] we have LGBT students coming to campus and many of them might not be open to their preferences,” Giesen said.

Through the card game and the following discussion Giesen took away a better understanding of diversity.

“You need to be more open and honest with yourself and how you feel about people from different walks of life,” Giesen said.

Deborah Pierce, associate provost of international programs, helped lead the event by asking questions and highlighting important things that participants shared. Pierce said the exchange program that gave the department the most problems was between the U.S. and United Kingdom.

“When you’re closer and [have] some of your expectations and cultural presuppositions, then you don’t automatically think, ‘Oh, it’s culture.’ You think, ‘That one’s an idiot’ and then a normal response is anger,” Pierce said. “It is culture, but you don’t think of it automatically because it’s so close.”.

Vicki Wronkowski, office manager for the counseling and student development center, was also in attendance and spoke about her past experiences with diverse situations. Wronkowski said she used to be a 911 dispatcher and wouldn’t be taken seriously by many callers, but when she had a male dispatcher explain things callers generally accepted it.

“You just have to do what you can as a service provider, but look for another outlet to raise awareness,” Wronkowski said.