Residential Life to offer staff language classes
Published Aug. 21, 2007
The Department of Residential Life has formed a new program to provide its staff an opportunity to learn workplace English for Spanish-speaking employees and Spanish for English-speaking employees.
Residential Life Director Frankie Minor said there has been a dramatic increase in non-English speaking employees in the past five years, primarily within the custodial staff. Minor said approximately 40 percent of the custodial staff does not speak English as their first language.
The goal of the program is to offer training for staff to communicate between themselves as well as with students.
"Communication is such an important aspect of all of our jobs," he said.
Another goal of the program is to improve cultural understanding, Minor said.
The classes, which will take place for one hour twice weekly for 16 weeks, will give Spanish-speaking employees an opportunity to learn English, which Minor said might in turn provide more employment opportunities for them within the department or elsewhere.
Residential Life explored the idea first with Spanish-speaking employees on campus and received positive feedback. English speakers also supported the idea.
The idea for the program was conceived over a year ago, largely in part by Residential Life training and development coordinator Rosa Burmeister. Bermeister speaks both English and Spanish.
The curriculum will focus on workplace-related vocabulary and grammar, Minor said.
Employee manuals, directions on mixing chemicals and other safety instructions have already been translated into Spanish, he said.
The costs of the program will be covered by the Residential Life Department, though the estimates are yet to be determined, Minor said.
Employees will be hired from the Career Center to teach the class. Two hall coordinators, Tomaz Cunningham and Sylvia Jauregui, will assist in teaching the classes. Cunningham will also be teaching part-time at MU as a graduate student in the department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Minor said.
The classes will be during the day so that it maximizes the availability of employees, who may have a second job or families to care for in the evenings.
This new program also upholds the commitment MU has to life-long learning and creating a learning-supportive environment, he said. Minor, who said he has wanted to learn Spanish for some time now in order to better communicate with Spanish-speaking employees, is one of the staff members taking the class this fall.
A second session will be offered later in the year.