SUBMITTED PHOTO The Iowa Valley Community College Board of Directors listen to a presentation on the Intercultural Development Inventory program during the regular Wednesday meeting. The meeting was held at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls.

IOWA FALLS — A presentation for building cultural competence was given to the Iowa Valley Community College Board of Directors during the regular meeting on Wednesday. The meeting was held at Ellsworth Community College (ECC).

Dean of Academic Affairs Vincent Boyd told the board about Intercultural Diversity Inventory (IDI). It is a widely-used tool assessment for building competence. To highlight the importance of the assessment, Boyd spoke about the diversity indexes of the counties in the IVCCD area.

“A diversity index tells us how likely two people chosen at random are from different racial ethnicity groups,” he said. “So, with a value of zero, it means everyone in the population is the same. If it’s 100, almost everyone in the population is different. So, the higher the number, the better.”

Boyd said he looked at Iowa as a whole. In the 2010 United States Census, Iowa’s index was 21 percent. In 2020, it grew to 31 percent. Since IVCCD does not serve the whole state, he looked at the counties within the district area. Boyd said in 2020, Hardin County had a diversity index of 17 percent.

“Marshall County had a great number at 47.8,” he said. “Tama was at about 30 percent. Then Poweshiek was at about 20 percent. What it shows us though is that parts of the district are growing from a diversity perspective, but others are lagging behind, and that’s fine because we are who we are.”

However, to understand the data, Boyd said the district should focus on inclusion, particularly for people not used to such a concept. He said inclusion makes people feel valued and engaged. Boyd said such actions can get everyone to understand IDI.

“That’s what we want to do with the IDI — get everyone together to understand how things are and how things could be,” he said. “To achieve that, we want to focus on two things — our cultural self understanding and our cultural other understanding.”

Boyd said people have great ideas of who they are, but more can be done to understand others.

“I think when we can better understand others, we can better coexist and create an environment that’s more inviting to everyone,” he said.

The IDI can assist people in understanding the importance of cultural competency, Boyd said. It can also be used to help the district develop goals to advance Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Boyd said if IVCCD wants to start IDI, Iowa State University staff will come to the Marshalltown Community College and ECC campuses to explain the program to faculty and administer a survey. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, he said the explanation will help put people at ease. Boyd added personal information gathered will be kept anonymous.

“The good thing about this, in addition to the survey, we would get two three-hour cultural competence sessions with Iowa State and another session that helps us outline our action plan,” he said.

Boyd told the board he hopes to get the IDI completed in the upcoming spring.

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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.