Working towards diversity, equity, and inclusion Podcast: Working towards diversity, equity, and inclusion. With Dima Al Munajed

Dima Al Munajed:

At the cluster as a cluster of excellence, I think we really believe that excellent science is diverse science, excellent teaching is diverse teaching. Diverse people bring with them so much more to the content that they work on because of their experiences and theirperspectives. And this not only produces a better quality of research, but also, I think, a more stimulating environment for the students that expect a lot from a University of Excellence.

Thea Fabian:

When students and also lecturers from all over the world, from different cultures and religions, suddenly sit together in a lecture hall at the University of Bonn, this can bringopportunities, but it can also create difficulties. Discussions about values, political attitudes or religious beliefs can quickly spark of unintentionally, because there might be a lack of knowledge about the intercultural group. And this is where our guest comes in. Her aim is to recognize the potential in the lecture hall and to prepare lecturers and students for this.Dima Al Munajed is the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Coordinator at the cluster ofexcellence at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies at the University of Bonn. Nice to have you here today.

Dima Al Munajed:

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Thea Fabian:

We will talk about the difficulties and opportunities in lecture halls and research groups that could not be more diverse when people from all over the world come to study here. But I know students who are not yet at this university will hear this podcast. So why should these students come here to the university? You yourself also have taken this path, so perhaps you can report from your personal experience.

Dima Al Munajed:

Yes. I'm also an international doctoral student at Uni Bonn, and to give you a bit of mybackground, I come from the Middle East and I did my bachelor's and political sciences at an American university and my master of science in sustainable development at a Britishuniversity. So I think when I was looking for the right university to continue with my education and go for a doctorate, the first thing was that I was surprised that I could actually study in English and get a doctorate in English in Germany. And I think this is a misconception in the region that we are oriented more towards English universities andstates or in the UK, and people are not aware that there are a lot of teaching opportunities in Germany in English as well. I found when I was doing my research the Center forDevelopment Research itself, it's an institute that's connected to University of Bonn, and it's been around I think now for almost 25 years. So for me, coming with a master's in sustainable development, I was really happy to find that in such an interdisciplinary institute where there is a structured program that would give me also a qualification and in addition to my focus area, which is which was like more politics and social science, I would also take courses in economics and environmental studies. So that really attracted me. And also to be

in Bonn, if you're interested in development, Bonn is the development hub, the UN is here and many other large international NGOs are also here. So really for me, it was surprising. I wasn't aware of it, but it was a great - from the side of the educational quality, it was a great experience.

Thea Fabian:

By the way, you are not alone with your experiences. We asked a few students to tell us about their impressions and asked them how diverse our university is.Umfrage Man:We have a pretty diverse group, but at the same time, I think the university should be more helpful in terms of involving us in the Fachschaft, for example.Umfrage Woman:I come from China and I'm an international student here and it's offered us a lot of chances and we can experience a lot of things just like I come from the Musikwissenschaft. So itoffers us the opportunity to join, the opportunity to join the production of Theater Bonn. So I think it's a really, really good university.

Thea Fabian:

There are many challenges, but I know that there are solutions to deal with them. Perhaps you can give an example for our listeners how students who enroll with us feel and what solutions the university offers.

Dima Al Munajed:

Yes, I can speak about the support that's given at ZEF and also at the BCDSS where I work because I'm familiar with both institutes and at ZEF and also at the BCGSS, there is a lot of supportgiven to international students in nonacademic areas. So finding a place to live, especially at ZEF with doctoral students that are older, they might come with families and this is even more challenging. They can't just stay in a student dorm. So finding a place to live, handling visa requirements, which can be very difficult, and then when they arrive, residencyrequirements, really, I think there's nothing that we can't ask. And I think I must have visited the Coordinator's Office at ZEF, possibly 100 times in the last five years that I've been with them for all kinds of non-academic support, not just related to my learning, my studying. At the BCDSS, what we also do is we have an orientation week where new students, we explain to them how they can enroll at the university, like select their different courses, what the examinations look like, you know, people coming from all over the world have differenttypes of examination formats that they're used to. Like in, in my experience, I never did an oral exam. We always had written exams to test at the end of the course. So we spend time really explaining these differences and also as the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Coordinator at the BCDSS, I give a short talk about diversity, equity and inclusion anddiscrimination and our policies and useful information that the students can refer to on the website, on our web pages. So all of this takes part in the during the orientation week.

Thea Fabian:

I think coming to a new university and a new country as well can be very overwhelming.

Can you maybe remember what was your first impression when you came here?

Dima Al Munajed:

My first impression, well, I was surprised the trains don't run on time. So, yeah, I think for for me, you have these certain expectations about being in Germany, like punctuality and things like that. And the language was difficult. Not a lot of information was available in English then. I should say, though, that over the past four or five years I did notice that theuniversity is making more effort to translate a lot more content. When I first joined, finding information on many pages in English was very difficult. We got emails that were just inGerman and now I think all of the emails or most of the emails that we receive are bilingual and more and more content is being translated. And I think this makes studentsfeel more connected to the university and to what's happening at the university so they can participate more. But I must say that my experience, because of the support, the immense support that we got and the support is voluntary, like the coordination team does it on top really to help us made, me feel very, very settled very quickly and I quickly started to feel like I was at home and that I had a system and it really helped me to settle very quickly and get on with my studies. And yeah, it was very positive, I think.

Thea Fabian:

So you've gone your own way and today you are trying to be responsible for how diverse our university is and can be. I hinted it at in the introduction such a diverse lecture hall. What conflicts can arise unintentionally? Can you give us some examples?

Dima Al Munajed:

Yeah. Well, at the cluster as a cluster of excellence, I think we really believe that excellent science is diverse science, excellent teaching is diverse teaching. Diverse people bring with them so much more to the content that they work on because of their experiences and their perspectives. And this not only produces a better quality of research, but also, I think, a more stimulating environmentfor the students that expect a lot from a university of excellence. Of course, when you have a very diverse classroom with people from all over the world, expectations are different, norms are different, and this can create challenges for the students when they're having conversations among each other and also for the lecturer who maybe was not used toteaching such a diverse class. So we try to, not prevent, but let's say, to raise awareness and to create a more welcoming and respectful environment through a number of tools. Wehave, for example, a code of conduct that we distribute as part of our onboarding, and it has certain clauses about respectful communication. How can I express my opinion in a way that doesn't hurt another person's feelings when I'm talking about their culture or about theirreligion? Unfortunately, the media, most media does not a very good job of of depicting things the way they are, but they tend to reinforce a lot of negative stereotypes in certain areas of the world. And so sometimes people have, they come to the classroom thinking that, yeah, things in that part of the world are a certain way or that way. And then theymight have certain opinions or ask questions in a way that is maybe hurtful to other people. So we try to focus on communication. We try to focus on respecting difference in opinion or respecting things like the use of pronouns that people prefer. So please respect everyperson's choice of pronoun use and name use. And when you also express your opinion, try to be thoughtful about how you do that. So I think this helps us avoid a lot of the miscommunications. But of course, they do happen sometimes. And in most cases since I've

joined the cluster, we try to deal with these instances through mediation. So really trying to bring people together and to understand each other's different perspectives. And usually that's worked quite positively.

Thea Fabian:

 When you look at your work, is it possible to resolve such conflicts? But sometimes, unfortunately also driven by politics, you can get the feeling that these are very big barriers.

Dima Al Munajed:

I think that now more than ever, we need to work to resolve conflictssooner than later. I think we need to focus more on building bridges between people as soon as we can and to create a culture of really open and respectful communication. We're anacademic institution. People should be able to express their opinions and to discuss knowledge and literature with each other, but like doing it in a way that's respectful is also something that we can learn and that we need to promote. So I think that it's moreimportant to do this now more than ever.And I think that, yes, it is very highly likely possible to create this environment. I think most people, when they engage with each other, don't engage with the intention of purposefully hurting each other. So there is a lot that we can do and some of the activities that we do at the cluster related to trainings and that are around diversity help to raise this kind ofawareness.

Thea Fabian:

How can you prepare the students and researchers for these challenges, especially if they are relatively new to the university or to Germany?

Dima Al Munajed:

I encourage the students to actively try to build connections when they're here. I think that they, if they come with this expectation that they want other people to approach them, they might be disappointed a little bit. I think compared to other societies, German society can appear a little bit distant sometimes or not so welcoming to people that are strangers or that don't exactlyknow how the system works. But from my own personal experience, I think that this is also a misconception and that people think it's a lot worse than it really is. In my experience,people that I have when I've approached them and asked for help or I don't know, invited them for dinner or for a coffee or something, people have been very positive and I think you just need to be also prepared to make the effort, make the effort to do things within your group. Invite your friend for a coffee if you prefer coffee over something else, you know, like as a mom, for example, it's hard for me to do things at certain times after hours because I'm with my family. So I'm conscious that I need to make some extra effort to socialize at other times that also work with with my friends because keeping a connection is important. So I would really encourage them to work on on building this network themselves.

Thea Fabian:

We have mentioned the international aspect. What other tasks fall within your area of work? Raising awareness, but also dealing with complaints of sexual harassment? Gender equality is certainly also an issue. What stories come together here and how can you help thoseaffected?

Dima Al Munajed:

So last year we drafted an anti-discrimination policy for the cluster, and in the anti- discrimination policy we define identity-based discrimination, but we also refer to Uni Bonn’s guidelines on sexual harassment, and we refer to Uni Bonn’s, sexual harassment policy also in our code of conduct. So we tried to make it very clear that we follow UniBonn’s policy in this regard. And when an issue arises, it would then automatically follow the process that's outlined in Uni Bonn’s policy. And also, we refer people to the vast opportunities for counseling support that are available at Uni Bonn for people thatexperience sexual harassment or discrimination, gender-based discrimination. So I thinkwe're lucky that we have a strong network of other specialized entities at the University that we cooperate with and that our members can resort to when they need support. And of course, internally from our side, we make it clear that our culture does not tolerate any form of sexual harassment or gender inequality. So I think we try to create an environment that supports women in academia, that supports persons with family care responsibilities. Wehave a family room in one of our main buildings at the cluster. We recently created a parent support group that, to sort of, you know, find out what our members need and how we can support them and how we can share information about child care and anything you know, that we need. And we also manage the room so that it's set up in a way that if you have to bring your child to work one daybecause the Kita is closed or whatever happens that you can work and at the same time the child can have some kind of, you know, something to do while you are working. So we do internally do our best to promote gender equality and also to create a sexual harassment free environment. But we also get a lot of support from Uni Bonn structures.

Thea Fabian:

How international, intercultural and diverse are we currently at the cluster of excellence, are there any figures on this? And maybe you have also insights about the university in general in comparison to other universities?Dima:Well, I think I can speak about my experience at ZEF and also at the BCDSS because these are the institutes, I'm most familiar with. I know that at the cluster we have two masterprograms that are taught in English and currently we have about 120 students. I believe 80% of them have an international background and come from around 30 different countries. At ZEF, like I mentioned, they've been around since I think 1999 and they've graduated 500 doctoral students from, I think, over 100 different countries. So I would say that these two institutes, because of their programs and yes, the BCDSS also has a PhD program and post- doc program, and these are also quite international as well. So because the teaching is done and the research is done in English, they are highly diverse in terms of nationality, religious background, cultural background.

Thea Fabian:

 What do you hope to achieve through your work? Is it enough to talk about it and raise awareness ore you have also carried out a study here at the university.How do you view the results?Dima:You mean the survey that we did?

Thea Fabian:

Yes.Dima:Yes. I think it's not enough to talk about these things or to create a policy at the cluster. We approached diversity through a diversity equity and inclusion framework. That's why I'm the DEI coordinator. And diversity may mean that, you know, we try to promote identity-based diversity in our among our members. And equity means that we realize that different people have different needs and we need to exert an extra effort to support all of these differentneeds. But I think moving forward, the most important is the “I”, the inclusion, and inclusion means that this diversity is not just a representative one that, yeah, we would like to show that look at how diverse we are. No, we want our diverse members to feel included, to feel that their perspective is heard, that it matters and that, you know, they belong to the organization, they can contribute to the organization. So things like having a survey everyyear and asking all of these questions and assessing what we're doing and collecting needs is a way to promote inclusion. And we collected quite a bit of feedback. I think it was quite positive. It's the first year that we do it, and for me it gave me a lot of insights on the needs of our members, like when they say that, okay, we would like more support in, in the area of family friendliness. We would like more information on mental health awareness and support, how we can get that. All of this helps me, make sure that my activities in the future are more in line with what they need and that the trainings that we offer under ourDiversity, Equity and Inclusion certificate are also targeting areas that our members are interested in and need. So yes, I would say without “I”, without inclusion, it doesn't really make sense to work on the rest.

Thea Fabian:

Is there something else you want to say at the end?

Dima Al Munajed:

I'm really glad that the university is organizing this podcast and talking about these topics, and I'm really glad to also be given the opportunity to do it in English. And I think it shows the university's efforts towards internationalization and giving international students and researchers more opportunities to participate in the university, to give back, you know, and with what they know in their efforts and to contribute. And I really appreciate that. And I would really encourage more and more international students to apply and to be part of all of the wonderful activities that are happening at Uni Bonn. And thank you for inviting me.

Thea Fabian:

We wish you all the best and thank you for being with us.

Dima Al Munajed:

Thank you.

Thea Fabian:

With Dima Al Munajed I talked about educational equity. She herself has already left her home country several times to study abroad and moved to a new country, including here in Bonn. But that's why she knows how difficult it can be to get along in a new country and at

an unfamiliar university. With her work, she therefore wants to make it easier for foreign students to arrive at the university and become integrated. In recent years, the university has already made some improvements for international students, but there are still some problems that she would like to work on in the near future.