(Posted February 2, 2009)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Juniata College will host a workshop on diversity issues called "Deep Culture: Cultural Communication Techniques and Current Issues Affecting Latinos" at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 11, in the Sill Boardroom in the von Liebig Center for Science on the Juniata campus.

The workshop is free and open to the public.


Presented by Joyce M. Avila, president of CAFÃ?: Creating and Facilitating Equality, the workshop will focus on how to a better communicator by understanding the communication tendencies of individual cultures. The session will ask participants to explore their own communication habits and to explore the habits of other cultures.

Avila founded her company, based in Tobyhanna, Pa., in 2003 as a diversity training enterprise specializing in team building, motivational workshops and training on minority issues.

In addition to her company's mission, Avila also continues her career as a minority leadership trainer for the National Education Association, giving seminars and workshops across the country. She has worked for the association since 1993.

Avila has enjoyed a long career in diversity education, starting her working life as a teacher and English as a Second Language coordinator for schools on New York and Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1999. In 1999, she became the director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Diversity Education Consortium at College Misericordia in Dallas, Pa. She moved to Keystone College, in La Plume, Pa., in 2001, working as diversity coordinator and associate professor through 2005.

She earned a bachelor's degree in 1986 in math and computer science from Boricua College in New York, N.Y. Avila went on to earn a master's degree in 1999 in bilingual and bicultural education from Immaculata, University in Immaculata, Pa.


Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.