Hello, my name is Valerie De Cruz.
I'm the director of the Greenfield Intercultural Center at the University of
Pennsylvania.
The center is designed to support students who come from diverse backgrounds and
we're particularly interested in supporting students or
the first in their family to attend college.
>> The center supports students by offering coursework for credit
that helps students look at diversity issues in all of its complexities.
Students then can apply to join some of our signature programs,
which extend the intercultural dialogue, and engage across diversity.
>> Hello, my name is Johnny Irizarry.
I'm the director of the Center for Hispanic Excellence, La Casa Latina.
So, our students use the center in many different ways.
In addition to our signature programs like mentorship and lectures and
workshops and celebrating latino heritage, our students also use the center as
a place where they can feel their safe, where they can exchange ideas and cultural
values with not only within the diversity of the latino communities here at Penn,
but also with the wider communities here at Penn.
>> So I am Brian Peterson,
I'm the Director of Makuu, the Black Cultural Center.
We were founded in 2000 and
really became a part of the different culture centers that we have here.
We have about 30 different student groups that we support and
different capacities from directive eyes and
to sort of informally encouraging students to utilize their resources,
to just really connecting them with upperclassmen who can advise them on what
they did when they were freshmen here and how they navigated their way through.
In addition to that, really trying to help students connect back to alumni for
different opportunities and
just understand all the different things that are available here at Penn for them.
>> Hi, my name is Peter Van Do.
I'm the director for the Pan-Asian American Community House,
also known as PAACH.
The Asian and Asian American resource center here on Penn's campus.
We started in Fall 2000 advocated by students, but I could see the staff.
We really came together to really fight and petition for a space like this.
What PAACH offers is too really help the facility and offer resources around Asian,
Asian American students and help to facilitate discussions around identity and
racism.
And ultimately, provide a space for people to feel or
have a chance to explore their identity, so that they can ultimately
be empowered and utilize those skills to be successful after college.
>> Hi, I know you're thinking about going to college and
I wanted to tell you about the Penn Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center.
What we do is education, support and advocacy.
Education takes a number of forms from very small
events to very large campus wide events.
Support is both for individuals and a number of other educational activities.
Advocacy is both individual for those students who feel they may have been
aggrieved on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and
in the community as a whole to try to make them as inclusive, and
sensitive a place as possible.
>> My name is Litty Paxton and
I'm the Director of the Women's Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
We were founded in 1973 following a three day sit in on campus organized by faculty,
students, staff and community members.
The Penn Women's Center means a lot of different Different things to a lot of
different students.
Some students come to us in crisis seeking immediate help
to deal with a difficult personal issue.
Other students come to use our lactation room, our library, our study spaces or
our eco kitchen.
A good deal of our time is spent supporting students of all genders as they
plan events and activities that will highlight women's issues, and
promote feminist dialogue, and leadership on campus.
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>> Our students also find the center a home away from home.
They love to be able to come, hang out, unwind.
It's really important to have a space where you can really relax,
make new friends.
Build community and think about the different ways in which you would
like to be supported while you're taking on a very rigorous academic schedule.
>> Our students a while ago developed seven principles in
which they really thought encapsulated what it is to to be at La Casa Latina and
what La Casa Latina should be for students.
Those kind of seven principles included that all students are welcomed.
That being different is an actually an asset.
That everyone deserves and can succeed at Penn or at any other university,
and that learning should never cause you any pain, and suffering.
>> Whether you go to a large university or a small university,
it's still a lot that's going to be happening.
And for students that often don't want to hear this, but it's important to say,
you need to find an adult that knows your name and that cares about you.
And I think for myself and my crew and for my colleagues at the other cultural
centers and various other spaces on campus,
we become those adults where we're not too intrusive in students' business.
But at the same time, we become someone that students can share highs and
lows with and kind of help them understand just the bigger picture here.
>> What PAACH means to students,
I think that they really take value, the fact that we have staff members and
other student leaders who are involved in our center who ultimately have your backs.
And if the cultural resource center is connected to an ethnic studies program or
a gender studies program, that's even better,
because you have the theory within the ethic or gender studies program.
But their cultural research center,
this is actually a place where you can do the practice.
And so that's going to be the key,
that's where we connect the academics to the practice.
>> Students come to the LGBT Center for a number of reasons.
They enjoy just hanging out at the center.
They enjoy working in the cyber center including taking advantage of our free
printing.
We have a large circulating library and they also have the opportunity
informally to chat with other students, because our students always
benefit from hearing about the experiences of other students.
And as a result, they enrich their own lives.
>> The women center is one of a number of places at Penn that can provide a more
intimate, small scale environment in which students can meet new people.
Explore their identity, have challenging conversations and
get the support that they need to excel for personally and academically.
So whatever campus you pick, be sure to check out centers like ours.
They may just become your home away from home.
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