In the spring, senior Rakel Ang will walk across the stage and receive a bachelor’s in both Chemistry and Biology. Ang, like all students who attend Seaver College, will have completed course requirements in her respective majors, along with Pepperdine’s general education requirements. In spite of this, Ang said she could not recall what class she took that fulfilled her Cultural Competency GE.
“I just didn’t realize that there was a specific requirement labeled in its own category as Cultural Competency,” Ang said.
Ang said she thinks cultural competency is necessary for a well-rounded education. But Ang is not the only student at Pepperdine who did not know there is a specific Cultural Competency requirement.
Senior Grace Redmon, junior Andreas Marouf and first-year Eden Schimanek all said they did not know about the Cultural Competency GE requirement. Junior Judah Fullman said he had a vague idea of it, citing GSHU 333, Asian Great Books, which fulfills the Global Perspectives and Cultural Competency requirements.
“I’ve got students coming to me going, ‘Hey, I didn’t know I had this,’” said Paul Begin, associate dean of Curriculum and General Education at Seaver College. “Well, that’s a problem. You should have known you had it, and we should have let you know, and we should have made it so that if it’s a core competency, you get it organically through your studies.”
What Exactly is Being Culturally Competent?
Charles Choi, professor of intercultural and intergroup communication, said he has a three-part definition of cultural competency. These being knowledge and understanding of other cultures, a willingness and motivation to engage and the skills and practice in communicating with those from other cultures.
“Those are three things that the Cultural Competency requirement at Pepperdine offers in those various classes that fulfill that requirement in one form or another,” Choi said.
Begin described cultural competency as being able to respond to situations that might involve others with different backgrounds.
“How do you be in the world, given the fact that we live in a world with people who come from all sorts of different ideologies, ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds,” Begin said. “That’s cultural competency.”
Cultural Competency is a zero-credit requirement, similar to the Writing Intensive, Research Methods and Presentation Skills requirements, said Sarah Stone Watt, interim associate dean of Seaver College and professor of Communication. Unlike these requirements, Cultural Competency can be fulfilled via a major class or a GE class.
“The reason we did that is because some majors lent themselves to tons of these kinds of classes where others really didn’t,” Stone Watt said.
Classes such as Organizational Behavior (BA 366) and Intercultural Communication (COM 313) are major-specific requirements for Integrated Marketing Communication and Communication majors, respectively, and also fulfill the Cultural Competency requirement, according to the 2024-25 Seaver College Academic Catalog.
Marouf, who did not know what the Cultural Competency GE was, took Intercultural Communication as a Sport Administration major. Marouf said the class familiarized him with different cultures and practices.
Biology and Chemistry majors such as Ang have no classes within their major that fulfill the Cultural Competency requirement, according to the catalog.
Andrea Harris, former head of advising at Pepperdine, said she recommends classes to Natural Science majors that fulfill both the Cultural Competency requirement and another GE requirement due to their heavier course load. Harris worked at Pepperdine for 20 years prior to her departure this fall.
Several GEs double count as Cultural Competency credit. SOC 200, Introduction to Sociology, counts for three: Diverse Perspectives, Human Institutions and Behavior, and Cultural Competency, according to the catalog. Intercultural Communication counts doubly as a Global Perspectives and Cultural Competency credit.
Redmon, a Sports Medicine major who did not know what the Cultural Competency GE was, took SOC 200. She said she connected to the class’s exploration of the history of feminism.
Senior Sociology major Brandon Hsu said he was familiar with the Cultural Competency requirement. Hsu is currently taking SOC 450, Race and Ethnic Relations, a class that fulfills major requirements and the Cultural Competency requirement.
Stone Watt said other classes can fulfill the requirement in various ways, such as Communication Sustainability, a class that she teaches.
“When we discuss sustainability, we have to talk about how those efforts affect people differently,” Stone Watt said. “How institutions and structures have to think about the different cultural contexts that change how people interact with sustainability efforts.”
Another example of this, Stone Watt said, is the GE nutrition class, Nutrition 210, where students discuss the linkages between various cultures and nutrition. Regardless of the subject, each class must meet specific learning objectives for it to be considered to fulfill the Cultural Competency requirement.
Both Stone Watt and Harris said the subtlety of the requirement is one of its strengths. The subject of cultural competency, on a general level, often deals with engaging and normalizing differences without forsaking individual values, Choi said.
“I think that in our relativistic world, our modern world, if you don’t agree with someone it’s almost like you’re rejecting them, at least,” Choi said. “That seems to be the pressure that a lot of people experience.”
Harris said she thinks the way Pepperdine approaches cultural competency ensures that students don’t feel like ideas are being imposed on them.
“All of a sudden you’re like, ‘Wow, I can look at people differently,’” Harris said. “You may not even notice that that happened, but I guarantee that a person leaves that class and their interactions with other people are subtly different, and they may not ever know why.”
Why Do I Need to Take Cultural Competency?
The Cultural Competency requirement is the realization of almost a decade of student activism, Stone Watt said.
“My role was really just pushing this across the finish line,” Stone Watt said. “There was a ton of work that happened long before I got involved.”
Students requested both they and faculty receive cultural competency training during student demonstrations in 2015, according to previous Graphic reporting.
“They were saying students shouldn’t be able to avoid it,” Stone Watt said. “Because it’s a skill they’re going to need when they go out into the world, and it’s a skill that makes living on campus in this community better for everybody.”
Then Seaver College Dean Michael Feltner formed a group that studied the student request and documented the need for a Cultural Competency requirement, Stone Watt said. In 2020, following further pressure, she, along with Religion and Sustainability Professor Chris Doran, drafted a proposal for the Cultural Competency requirement. Stone Watt and Doran submitted the proposal to the GE review committee, which Begin oversaw at that time.
“This is a proposal that was in large part a response to the build up of a sense that we’re a super disengaged university on the sort of social justice front,” Begin said. “We don’t know how to speak with people not like us.”
Begin said during that period from 2016 to 2020, despite the topic itself being discussed amongst students, there seemed to be an indifference to the issue as a whole from the broader Pepperdine community.
“As divisional dean I would hear comments from students that we lack cultural competency,” Begin said. “You read about it in the Graphic every once in a while, it’s kind of in the air.”
Previous Graphic reporting has covered both the new GE curriculum and the university’s history of racial interactions.
Especially in this day and age, with the internet, it’s easier than ever to end up in an echo chamber, Choi said. Conversely, there isn’t much opportunity to be exposed to different perspectives.
“The way it plays out, I think for a lot of us — myself included — is it takes effort to be willing to hear something that might be contradictory to my own beliefs,” Choi said. “Particularly when it comes to these hot button topics like race and politics and religion, it creates a situation where we’re avoidant of it, where we’re not quite willing to engage.”
However, Choi said there is also inherent value behind these interactions and engagements, many of which he sees in his classroom today.
“A lot of research talks about how more diverse decision-making groups have clear advantages,” Choi said. “They’re able to think in various ways and in different cultures, emphasizing different kinds of values within these decisions that are being made.”
The 2015 protests also proposed programs to help faculty and staff have access to the same skills, Stone Watt said. Administration implemented a program called Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED), Religion Professor Cari Myers said.
SEED is a national professional development program that encourages self-reflection and dialogue with the goal of deepening inclusivity, according to the SEED website. Myers co-authored a study that surveyed faculty regarding the implementation of SEED, published in 2021. The feedback from faculty, Myers said, was almost universally positive.
“Faculty members felt that they had language to understand different lived experiences than their own,” Myers said. “And that was really helpful for them.”
Choi said he sees Pepperdine as a place that is able to hold its Christian values while also having a willingness to investigate and ask questions about issues. Pepperdine is able to act as a space where students can comfortably have these discussions, without fear of detrimental effects.
“Not cramming down their throats, but just sharing Christ’s love to all and creating an environment where we can engage with another person,” Choi said.“Not with another category of people, but with another person. To see a person as a very unique, gifted, special individual. That certainly holds true with the ethos of the university that we are.”
Diverse Perspectives in the New Curriculum
During the same time that Pepperdine implemented the Cultural Competency GE, Begin said he and the GE review committee were working on a related GE: the Diverse Perspectives GE. This was a part of a much larger general overhaul to the curriculum that aimed to add more flexibility in GEs and allow students to explore more of their interests.
“The way we first proposed a Diverse Perspectives category was: out of these classes you have to take, one of them has to click this box,” Begin said. “That was not acceptable to some faculty. Some of them were like, ‘We don’t want to be a check mark.’”
Begin said that while to a student or outsider the difference might be subtle, the establishment of a distinct category is important.
“To faculty who saw that we have never really addressed this in our curriculum, it was a big deal to say there needs to be a category called Diverse Perspectives,” Begin said.
Begin said while Diverse Perspectives originated from a similar need in the curriculum as Cultural Competence, the two requirements have key differences.
Whereas Cultural Competency equips students for how they may interact with others not like themselves, Begin said Diverse Perspectives functions more as a way to learn about cultures through a different lens.
“One is attitudes and behaviors, one is content,” Begin said. “Those are two different things.”
Diverse Perspectives is a connections course requirement that focuses on the voices of minoritized or historically excluded groups, according to the catalog.
Begin said he personally frames the class within the Christian tradition of understanding and appreciating stories that students might not otherwise discover. This class also differentiates itself from Global Perspectives — previously World Civilization — in key ways. Global Perspectives might not necessarily focus on marginalized groups, as the focus is cultural systems outside of Western culture.
“You could probably take a class that did both of those things at once,” Begin said. “But you could also take a class that looked at U.S. history and studied Diverse Perspectives.”
Begin said another example of a class that could fall into the Diverse Perspectives category would be a class formerly taught at the Pepperdine London campus regarding The Troubles, a period of religious and ethnic conflict in Ireland from 1968 to 1998.
“That’s Western Europe, we got a pretty good handle on that,” Begin said. “That would not be a Global Perspectives class. It would be a great Diverse Perspectives class, because you would learn about the religious conflict, the oppression of one group by another group based on religion in Ireland.”
Schimanek, a first-year Political Science major, said she is currently in the Social Action and Justice (SAAJ) colloquium, a four-course, optional social justice sequence that allows students to fulfill either the Diverse Perspectives or U.S. Experience requirement, along with English Composition, Religion 300, Foundations of Reasoning and the Interpretation requirement. Shimanek said through the colloquium, she’s explored figures who have defied social norms, such as Malcolm X.
Begin said it’s too early to tell the impact the Diverse Perspectives class will have. However, he said he’s excited to see how the class of 2028 — the first class to take this new curriculum — responds.
“I’ve dreamed about Seaver College being more intellectually vibrant, pursuing knowledge for knowledge’s sake,” Begin said. “Pursuing interests, not just checking boxes.”
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Contact Maximilian Pohlenz via email: maximilian.pohlenz@pepperdine.edu
