Cultural Consciousness

At The University of Texas at Austin, we are dedicated to attracting highly-qualified students, faculty, and staff of all races, ethnicities, peoples, nationalities, religious backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, socioeconomic statuses, disabilities, and health histories, regardless of their marital, parental, age, veteran, or citizenship status.

Our mission in Sorority and Fraternity Life is to shape a values-based sorority and fraternity experience. We cultivate educational and leadership development, in collaboration with individuals and organizations, to foster a culturally consciousness, safe and responsible community contributing to a positive sisterhood, brotherhood and siblinghood.

Cultural consciousness represents an individual's recognition, respect and tolerance that is demonstrated toward other cultures including their own culture and those that are not represented in their environment. It can be defined as the process of developing awareness of culture in the self, which can result in expanding understandings of culture and developing deeper cultural knowledge about other individuals and context.

Our council communities and chapters have been committed to this work in a variety of ways such as creating actionable statements, donating time and money to social justice efforts and through programming for their community members and the larger UT community.

As an office, it is our belief that the initiatives outlined below support our office's commitment to cultural consciousness. We have categorized these initiatives into three categories: Education, Service and Awareness

Cultural Heritage Month Resources

• Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month
• Black History Month
• Cesar Chavez Day
• National Deaf History Month
• National Disability Employment Awareness Month
• National Hispanic-Latino Heritage Month
• National Native Heritage Month
• National Women's History Month
• Pride Month

Cultural Consciousness Categories

Education

• Racial Geography Tour - Through the African Diaspora Studies Department, Dr. Edmund Gordon offers a racial geography tour of The University of Texas at Austin's campus. This tour provides education about the campus' systemic, racial, and militarist nationalist history and how it is infused within the campus architecture and landscape. Sorority and Fraternity Life offers students an opportunity to participate in this experience to provide context for how those ideologies impact campus climate and develop a deeper cultural understanding of the "40 acres". Explore the racial geography tour.
• Cultural Consciousness Module - Sorority and Fraternity Life strives to educate its community on issues regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion in order to promote cultural consciousness among its members and across campus. In order to foster that change, the office developed the Cultural Consciousness Module using the Canvas platform to provide chapters with the tools to begin taking steps towards change on campus. Through a series of short videos and articles, organization members have access to this resource to support Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts among its members and organizations. Register for the Cultural Consciousness Module.

Service / Philanthropy

• MLK Day of Service - In collaboration with the Center for Community Engagement, Sorority and Fraternity Life will participate in Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service to provide education on equity and community advocacy. Service is a component that ties all fraternal organizations together and, by dedicating this holiday to service, students will have an opportunity to contribute to purposeful service within and for the Austin community. We're encouraging chapters to participate in virtual service opportunities on January 18th, 2021in honor of MLK. Use the hashtag #TexasGreeksGiveBack and tag us on social media we can share your acts of service.

Awareness

• WYLW - Wear Your Letters Wednesdays is a campaign aimed to increase visibility and awareness of sororities and fraternities and their vast and varied membership – from active members to alumni, UT students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to wear their organization letters, colors or paraphernalia on the first Wednesday of each month. Participants can engage with our office through social media by using the hashtag #TexasGreeks #WYLW and tagging our social media accounts @UTAustinSFL on both Instagram and Twitter. This will foster awareness of the diverse fraternal organizations that exist within our community.

History of Sorority and Fraternity Life

For many of us, we only know the history of our own Greek organizations. Through this presentation, students will gain a better understanding about the evolution of fraternal organizations at The University of Texas at Austin, along with our diverse array of council communities. This presentation also includes historical societal movements parallel to the growth of our UT Austin Sorority and Fraternity Community. Learn more about the history of Sorority and Fraternity Life.

Campus Resources

• Disability Resources
• Disability and Access
• UT DEI Website
• Track UT's DEI Progress
• Dr. Moore's course: https://diversity.utexas.edu/2020/06/29/history-of-the-black-experience/
• Racial Geography Tour: https://racialgeographytour.org/tour-stop/gearing-hall/

Videos

• A Conversation With Native Americans on Race | Op-Docs
• A Conversation with Latinos on Race
• A Conversation with Black Women on Race
• A Conversation with White People on Race
• A Conversation About Growing Up Black
• A Conversation With My Black Son
• A Conversation With Police on Race
• I Am Not Your Asian Stereotype
• Walking in your truth as an LGBT youth | Daniella Carter
• James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni: A Conversation
• Toni Morrison on Whiteness (Interviewed by Charlie Rose)
• Race and Whiteness in the Era of Trump
• Notes on a Native Son: The world according to James Baldwin
• Ghosts of White People Past: Witnessing White Flight From an Asian Ethnoburb

Podcast/Audio

• About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Code Switch
• Intersectionality Matters! With Kimberlé Crenshaw
• Seeing White

Institutional Racism Supplemental Reading

• Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination."
• Devah Pager, "The Mark of a Criminal Record."
• Cate Matthews, "He Dropped One Letter In His Name While Applying For Jobs, And The Responses Rolled In."
• Michael Luo, "Whitening the Resume."
• Racial Bias In St. Louis Revealed Via Hidden Camera
• Paul Campos, "White Privilege is Alive and Well."
• Griff Witte and Nell Henderson, "Wealth Gap Widens for Blacks, Hispanics."
• Ben Rooney, "Recession Worsens Racial Wealth Gap."
• Erik Wemple, "Bill O'Reilly's Levittown Denialism."