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GIC in Practice
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 United Minorities Council
The United Minorities Council is an intercultural alliance founded in 1978 to support the needs of students of color. The UMC hosts two major university activities: Unity Week in the Fall and Celebration of Cultures in the Spring. At their leadership retreat, board members experienced the thrill of rock climbing the 40-foot climbing wall at the Pottruck Center. The goal was to increase self awareness and group processing through climbing and team building activities. It was a unique opportunity for our board leaders to promote unity through emphasizing trust, communication, and leadership. |
 The GIC is home to Six Directions, an organization founded in 1994 for students interested in Native American issues. The two founding alums were Bryan Brayboy and Desiree Martinez. This organization works with faculty and staff to increase the presence of Native American students at Penn. The organization recently hosted the All Ivy Native American Student conference which brought over 100 students and featured a strong array of speakers from Indian Country. |
 Alliance and Understanding
In the Alliance and Understanding program, students come together to learn about the civil rights movement and the historic partnership between Blacks and Jews during that historic moment in our nation's history. In the Spring students travel in the south visiting civil rights sites and learning from ordinary citizens who were involved in the movement. This program was founded in 1997, will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year and is a collaboration between the GIC, Hillel and the African American Resource Center. |
 Programs for Awareness in Cultural Education Programs for Awareness in Cultural Education (PACE) was established in 1993 as a partnership between the Greenfield Intercultural Center and the Graduate School of Education to train students to increase cross-cultural awareness at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr.Navneet Khera, a graduate student at the time, founded the program at the initiative of GIC's acting director Joseph Sun, with advice and support from GSE Professor Nancy H. Hornberger. Khera's original conception remains the core of the PACE experience today. Graduate level courses are co-facilitated by instructors to create with students a pedagogically democratic space for sustained engagement and dialogue around cross cultural issues. Collaborative experiential learning and textual knowledge is interwoven with lived experiences as students explore difference among each other and within themselves. Instructors and GIC staff continue to work with these students on campus after the course component is finished to deepen their knowledge and identify applied strategies for engaging in social change. |
 Community Collaborations
The GIC is proud to support the Al-Bustan Percussion Ensemble. The center has provided support to Hazami Sayed, founder of Al-Bustan and Joseph Tayoun, master Arab American percussionist who have developed a wonderful apprenticeship program for young adults interested in Arabic drumming.Now in its fourth year, the apprenticeship has included eight students, ages 10 to 15 years, all of whom had some initial experience drumming with Mr. Tayoun, either at Al-Bustan Camp or elsewhere. Through weekly one-on-one and group instruction the apprentices learn about Arabic music traditions and develop their technical mastery while learning various rhythms and composing arrangements on the tabla, daf and riq. As the apprentices are of varied backgrounds, from Arab and non-Arab, to Muslim, Christian and Jewish, Al-Bustan provides a way for those children of Arab heritage to connect with and affirm their cultural identity, while providing a forum for non-Arab children to appreciate Arab culture through the study of music. |
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