Kansas State University

S.A.F.E. Zone offers class on trauma at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 8

Submitted by Debra Jane Bolton

The Kansas State University S.A.F.E. Zone program, in the Department of Multicultural Student Affairs, invites you to an advanced workshop for faculty and staff at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, online via Zoom. This S.A.F.E. Zone advanced workshop targets those who wish to develop further in their learning in trauma and its life-long effects on historically excluded populations. 

Please register now at kstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dbxYVYZIODwYvoG. 

The Zoom link will be sent out to all participants the night or morning before the scheduled class.

Rationale: As with any intercultural learning processes, all students — be they faculty, staff, or university students — must understand and internalize the benefits of understanding the effects of trauma. This class will give its participants some guidance on identifying trauma while offering resources to address trauma's effects on students and colleagues. This learning is not a checkbox, nor is it a once-and-done process.

• We can assist in the creation of the systems and processes to make institutional changes.
• We can move from simple verbal statements to modeling and practicing equitable representation of historically excluded populations in the K-State culture.

The goal is to move toward allyship, with historically excluded groups in "Authentic Allyship." For example:

• "Performance Allyship," i.e., extrinsically motivated and tends not to be sustainable. Rather it tends to be a means to an end.
• "Authentic Allyship," intrinsically motivated and tends to promote positive and sustainable change in systemic exclusion.

S.A.F.E. Zone exists to provide open and affirming spaces throughout the K-State campus where individuals affected by marginalization, discrimination, violence, aggression and other forms of exclusion can go for support and assistance. K-State faculty, staff, students and community members can become S.A.F.E. Zone allies as a way to show publicly their commitment to understanding human differences and promoting equity across campus and community.

For more information, contact Debra Bolton, director of intercultural learning and academic success at dbolton@k-state.edu, or Brandon Haddock, student services coordinator, Department of of Multicultural Student Affairs and LGBT Resource Center, at bhaddock@k-state.edu.