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Don’t let your lunch break waste away – spend it at the Cultural Café!

Once a month, the TWU Counseling Center hosts an ongoing safe space for cultural dialogue. This semester, Cultural Café will take place in SU 113 from 12:15 – 1 p.m. on Tues., Feb. 28, Tues., March 28, and Tues., April 25.

TWU Licensed Psychologist Dr. Marshall Bewley says: “I think university life is about challenging yourself and thinking critically. If we only encounter people that are similar to us with similar ways of thinking, then it really limits the way we can challenge our own beliefs and our own ideas and maybe any misinformation that we hold…It’s a place where people can challenge the privilege that they hold, but also maybe examine ways in which they can get support if they are experiencing more of a marginalized identity.”

The Feb. 28 Cultural Café is titled “Student, Parent, Partner: Juggling Multiple Roles.” Bewley said: “Given that our student body’s average age is twenty-eight, we have so many non-traditional students, and a lot of our students are parents, we wanted to have a space where we focus on what issues are relevant in particular when you’re juggling multiple life roles.”

“Did That Really Just Happen? Coping with Race-Related Stress” is the title of the March 28 Cultural Café. “People have learned to not be overtly racist, but…I think a lot of times racial minority individuals experience microaggressions or microinsults and have to kind of push them to the side in a way. So we’ll be focusing a little bit on resiliency,” says Bewley.

The April 25 Cultural Café is titled “Body Size Diversity: Embracing Your Size and Image,” and it will focus on how messages around body size impact us. “Women often do get stronger messages around what their ideal body weight should look like, and that can also be culturally specific,” Bewley explained

Cultural Café is open to all TWU students, faculty and staff members. Bewley says: “We try to just create a space where people can just kind of share if they want to. So some people listen, other people are much more verbally active. There’s really no right way of being there.”

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