The University of Maryland offers hundreds of opportunities for co-curricular involvement. These out of class experiences complement and enhance the formal classroom experience. An excellent way to begin your campus involvement is to join a culturally specific student organization. A culturally specific organization is a group that is related to a specific culture by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. These organizations were founded to support the needs and address the concerns of these specific cultural communities. These types of organizations provide students with a sense of grounding, familiarity and community. Culturally specific organizations serve as excellent connectors to other avenues of campus involvement and opportunity.

Culturally Specific…Not Culturally Exclusive!
Culturally specific student organizations like all recognized student organizations at the University have a non-discrimination clause in their constitution. These organizations are culturally specific not culturally exclusive. They invite all members of the campus community to participate in and attend their programs. Research shows that members of culturally specific student organizations are more likely to have cross cultural involvements, interactions and friendships than students in other types of campus organizations. In spite of the potential benefits that culturally specific student organizations provide to students and the campus, these groups are sometimes unfairly stereotyped and criticized. Some contend that such organizations are an impediment to diversity and campus unity. Sentiments such as these are ill informed and unfair and place the burden of campus diversity and community on the shoulders of cultural communities and organizations. Diversity, intercultural interactions and the creation of community at the University are the responsibility of every citizen of the campus.

Benefits of Involvement in Culturally Specific Student Organizations
Community: Making the University smaller and more personal is crucial to student success. Relating to persons who understand your heritage, culture, language, sexual orientation and traditions is a stabilizing force. Being able to be who you are without question or apology is crucial to a sense of self and psychological well-being. Involvement in culturally specific organizations provides this crucial communal grounding.

Social: Culturally specific student organizations provide students many opportunities to meet and get to know other students. Being able to socialize and relax in the tradition of one's culture has long been an aspect of minority student life on college campuses. Familiar patterns and rituals of interaction, socialization and modes of communication can aid in student satisfaction and retention.

Scholarship/Mentorship: Culturally specific student communities and organizations care a great deal about student success and retention. Members of these organizations help acclimate new students, provide their members with information on academic and career opportunities and have ongoing relationships with faculty, staff and alumni that help students succeed.

Diversity: Involvement in a culturally specific student organization provides students the opportunity to learn more about their own background and cultural heritage. No group of people is monolithic. In culturally specific student organizations, students meet, interact, and work with others of their group who may be of different ethnicities, from different geographical locations, of different genders, sexual orientations, religions, political affiliations and economic classes.

Political Awareness and Involvement: Culturally specific student organizations provide students with the opportunity to explore and get involved with political issues from the standpoint of culture. In accord with their purpose and missions, these groups are often engaged with campus, local and national issues that impact race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. Through their involvement, students acquire and gain skills in research, negotiation, conflict resolution and strategic planning.

Community Service: Culturally specific student organizations provide a great deal of community service to affiliate communities and organizations outside the campus. While the focus of their community service efforts is not limited to affiliated cultural organizations and communities, these groups' unique composition and purpose allow them to understand the needs and address specific concerns of affiliated communities. Their insider knowledge puts them in a position to be mentors to children, serve as role models to peers, and to create unique service interventions. Whether encouraging educational attainment, promoting health concerns, or addressing issues of community empowerment, these organizations provide needed and invaluable service.

Leadership Development: Involvement in culturally specific student organizations develops hands-on leadership skills. Through advocacy of political issues, providing community service, or creating programs, students in these organizations acquire and develop critical skills that can be used in any other arena of society or organizational involvement and development. Students in these organizations are in a unique position to study, learn and understand leadership from a cultural perspective. Information that students garner from their observations on leadership in cultural communities can serve as a catalyst for cross cultural understanding and social change.