The Humanity Tree: Rethinking Diversity at Georgetown Qatar

Qatar’s Education City houses a wide variety of educational institutions, each providing an accredited and internationally established curriculum in a variety of fields. These bastions of higher learning, built of gleaming metal and shimmering glass that reflect the landscaped campuses of Qatar Foundation’s vision for regional academic transformation, do have one thing in common: they are providing an education for a student body that is a unique multicultural mix of students that has presented equal doses of benefit and challenge.

For one Education City institution, Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), both the benefits and challenges of diversity have led to the launch of a new initiative on campus to bring Georgetown’s foundational Jesuit values of “community in diversity” to the forefront of student services.

“Cura Personalis, which is Latin for ‘caring for the whole person’, is the Georgetown motto that is at the heart of this initiative,” said Dr. Mahnaz Nowrozi Mousavi, Director of the Student Wellness and Counseling Center at GU-Q, the department that is responsible for student counseling as well as for fostering a positive campus environment for the entire school community. The Center operates under the student development department, which is also responsible for new admissions and student affairs.

The challenges faced by students coming together from different backgrounds are many, and often, unforeseen. “”Sometimes offense is caused to others without intention, out of a misunderstanding that stems from having different backgrounds,” pointed out Dr. Mousavi, adding, “so what we want to do here at the Wellness Center is to facilitate respectful dialogue and exchange, in order to be able to care for each other without losing our own unique identities.”

To date, GU-Q already has several diversity-minded programs that cater to a student body that represents over 40 different countries. The student-run women’s center provides female students with a safe space to interact and network for socialization, as well as career development opportunities.

Two programs, the ‘Zones of Conflict, Zones of Peace’ and the ‘Community Engagement’ programs take groups of student volunteers out of the comfort zone of their school life to very different parts of the world for eye-opening experiences. Film screenings, book readings, and a rich calendar of speaking engagements with visiting artists, writers, and political leaders, all of which are also open to the public, also contribute to GU-Q’s diversity efforts. But for Georgetown, it’s not enough.

“Our broad range of diversity initiatives are based on our student needs assessments, which help us identify the relevant issues and concerns,” said Saaliha Khan, a student development officer. “We need to build a respectful environment where we not only respect each other, but where we can also allow these differences to become our strengths.” GU-Q has reorganized their diversity campaign to drive this idea home, with the introduction of The Humanity Tree, a visual representation of Georgetown’s entire diversity philosophy and a brand name suggested by one of our students, Badr Eddin Rahimah. “This diagram is rooted in our diversity-so the roots of the tree represent our different backgrounds, such as culture, nationality, and language. And the branches “represent our different aspects of mind, body, spirit and aspiration.” A “diversity task force” was also created to insure school-wide involvement, including faculty and staff.

The newly envisioned diversity construct will be placed on the school’s library website, where all related resources will be placed relevant to each tree component. All related programming will stem, in a manner of speaking, from the Humanity Tree. The upcoming semester of new students launched this campaign with their contribution of a personally designed Cafe Ceramique tile reflecting the uniqueness of each student, a student orientation activity GU-Q has done for many years, by adding it to a humanity tree display. This new twist to an old tradition will continue with all future incoming freshmen.

Qatar’s strong development indicators point to a future where diversity will continue to provide both challenges, and payoffs. “Holistic, grassroot efforts that empower students, as well as connect to faculty and staff, are part of an organized approach that will allow our university’s core values to create a sustainable community,” added Saaliha. These connections and communities will go a long way toward meeting the challenges of a shared world.