Professional Development Institute

Presidential Initiative - WMU Professional Development Institute

Building Cultural Competencies

The office of Institutional Equity, in partnership with the Offices of Academic Affairs and Diversity and Inclusion, will hold the seventh "WMU Professional Development Institute: Building Cultural Competencies", Tuesday, May 5 to Friday, May 8, 2026.  A presidential initiative and the first of its kind in southwestern Michigan, this Professional Development Institute (PDI) features a 30-hour curriculum (3 ½ days) that utilizes intercultural communication concepts and theories to promote the development of cultural competencies central to cultivating an inclusive, diverse workplace. The focus is on providing a comprehensive professional development opportunity for WMU employees interested in gaining the necessary knowledge, skills, and motivation to facilitate culturally-relevant learning activities in and outside of the university classroom. The PDI was recognized by the University with a 2022 Excellence in Diversity Award.

Dr. Mark P. Orbe, Professor, School of Communication and Institutional Equity Faculty Fellow will be the facilitator for the PDI. Designed as a “train-the-trainers” workshop, the Institute works to empower and develop participants to effectively manage cross-cultural communication, implement diversity and inclusion programming, and facilitate different professional development opportunities in various university contexts. The curriculum includes low, moderate and high level experiential learning exercises followed by theoretically-informed facilitation processing which can be replicated and/or adapted to diverse audiences. Specific learning outcomes include:

• Engage participants in multimodal learning activities to create a heightened awareness of how historical, social and structural dimensions affect contemporary inter-group relations;
• Equip participants with the necessary knowledge, resources, support and internal networks to provide equity, diversity, and inclusion programming across WMU;
• Empower participants in the co-creation of individual professional development goals related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and access; and
• Enhance existing individual and organizational resources in the building of cultural competency capacity toward the development of a campus model for future sustainability.