Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA encourages students to volunteer or attend educational sessions on Martin Luther King Jr. Day instead of having the day off. One session discussed intercultural sensitivity and international students. It covered differences between high and low context cultures like the US and Nepal. The session also discussed cultural dimensions that help understand other cultures. As religions are embedded in cultures, the discussion showed how learning about cultures can help understand different religious practices and traditions around the world.

1. Lebanon Valley College of Annville, PA takes
advantage of Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Day (MLK Day), an American national holiday, is to commemorate
Martin Luther King Jr. He was a man that fought for non-violence, specifically protesting racial
discrimination, during the civil rights movement in the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. was
so influential that soon after his assassination; a few men got together and created a campaign to
have a new holiday for the socially confident man. It took many years, but in 1983 President
Ronald Reagan signed a law for the holiday. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated on the
3rd Monday of every January. At first some states in the United States did not want to celebrate
this day due to it being aimed at an individual rather than the movement as a whole. The year
2000 was the first year that all states finally agreed to celebrate the holiday.
MLK Day provides an opportunity to go out and learn something
new about those surrounding you and help someone or volunteer somewhere. There are many
schools and organizations that do not operate on MLK Day. People are encouraged to go out and
help someone else. Lebanon Valley College is a small Liberal Arts College in Annville, PA. A
few years ago, Lebanon Valley College teamed up with local organizations and offered to have
some students volunteer to go and help out for a day. If a student is not able to go out and help
locally, the student is encouraged to go to an educational session held on campus. These sessions
are on different topics, which help students gain an understanding of a cultural group other than
their own. The sessions are usually discussion and activity based in structure.
I got the opportunity to sit in on a session titled “Intercultural Sensitivity and International
Students”. Throughout the session we discussed different things. We discussed things that we
observe about other cultures and even observed our own culture here in the United States. We
also learned about characteristics of low and high context cultures. The difference of context
cultures depends on a culture’s communication style. A high-context culture would be a country
such as Nepal (a country in Asia). They react differently to interactions with friends and
strangers. They tend to use more hand signals and sometimes have a special language indigenous
to the area. People from Nepal interpret the word “no” as a rude phrase. Usually when trying to
say no (or the idea of no), they beat around the bush and say something like “I will see how I am
feeling, then maybe I will go”. An example of a low-context culture would be the United States.
Americans tend to be very outspoken and voice our opinions explicitly. We interact with
everyone in our comfort circle the same way. We may interact with strangers differently than
those who are in our own comfort circle. In this session, we also talked about Geert Hofstede’s
Dimensions. These dimensions help one to understand other cultures.

2. As we were talking about these topics during the session, I thought there had to be a way that this
relates to religion. After some thought, I realized there was an obvious connection between
culture and religion. Religion is imbedded into culture. All around the world you will find that
different countries have different ways of going about their daily routine or of interacting with
one another. For example, someone in the Islamic culture would say, “assalamu alikum”, as a
greeting. This is used to bring Muslims together and makes the bonds between them greater.
There is a lot to learn about religions that are not the same as your own. There are many good
sources to help you understand other practices. Share what you learn about religions with others!
Links to learn more about:
Context Cultures: http://www.culture-at-work.com/highlow.html
Cultural Dimensions: http://geert-hofstede.com/dimensions.html
Project Interfaith Conversation Kits to help you talk about religion and other
topics! http://projectinterfaith.org/page/online-store-menu
Elizabeth Zeiner is a new member to the Project Interfaith team. She is one
of two Communications Interns. She is currently attending Lebanon Valley
College, located in Annville, Pennsylvania, where she is a Religion Major
with a Sociology Minor. She is a senior and will be graduating in May 2015.
Elizabeth has been involved with communities aside of her own and has
traveled to various countries, such as Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Jamaica,
Switzerland, Hungary, France, and Italy. Traveling to all these places and
gathering information from Lebanon Valley’s religion classes have helped
her gain greater knowledge of the religious and cultural traditions
throughout the world. Elizabeth has also attained an Interfaith Certification
through Lebanon Valley College.
Elizabeth hopes that the experience of working with Project Interfaith will help her learn more about the
world of religions surrounding her as well as gain more knowledge about non-profit organizations.