Cultural Linguistic Services: Offering a world of assistance


	These props are used during a Cultural Linguistic Services session. Prices are printed below pictures of various foods, and the fake money is used to simulate transactions. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

Cultural differences can resemble an iceberg, according to Jane Gressang, UI language and cultural specialist.

“Some things you can clearly see are different—an accent, or if a person doesn’t shake hands,” says Gressang, who helps run the University’s Cultural Linguistic Services, a new Human Resources initiative to support an increasingly diverse and inclusive campus community. “But then there’s a large level of differences that you don’t see.”

Those differences are presenting themselves more frequently as the population of the University of Iowa workforce, not to mention that of the state of Iowa, becomes more diverse. Avoiding potential misunderstandings is the goal of English-speaking and English-learning employees alike, says Gressang, who hopes the new UI linguistic services program, which was launched in July 2006, will help everyone meet the goal.

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