Organizers of this weekend’s Diversity Conference have advertised for the event with a simple question: “Diversity: Is It NU?”
The fourth annual conference, focusing on diversity “in you” and at Northwestern, features a variety of events, such as workshops, performances, speakers and an activities fair.
“In our view, diversity is something that is simultaneously within the individual and a part of the community,” said Jason Spitz, Communication sophomore and co-chairman of the conference committee. “Our goal of the conference is to get the participants to get a better understanding of their personal diversity and also the importance of diversity in the community in which they live.”
Diversity Conference festivities began Thursday night with a World War II exhibit at the Block Museum that featured works of art from Nazi concentration camps.
Tonight at Lisa’s Cafe NU students will participate in “Diversity Slam,” which will include dances, songs, skits and poetry.
The conference itself begins Saturday afternoon and will end with a night of ethnic food at the Multicultural Center.
Members of the conference committee encourage students to participate in all of the events.
“We want (students) to learn from others and to integrate in their perspectives, the perspectives of others, so that they have a better understanding of the different levels of diversity,” said Tedd Vanadilok graduate assistant at the MCC and adviser for the conference committee.
To achieve this goal, the conference will present an array of workshops covering a broad range of issues such as race, gender roles, sexuality, disabilities, economic status and religion.
“The primary misconception about diversity is that people think it’s primarily about race,” Vanadilok said. “We’re not concentrating on specific topics because the main objective is to get students to think about diversity on multiple levels.”
Panel discussions will cover topics such as the role of student groups and cliques at NU, making NU a more disabilities-friendly environment, sexual orientation and stereotypes, and religious diversity.
The keynote speaker at the conference will be award-winning African-American novelist Randall Kenan. Kenan spent four years interviewing African Americans across the country and recorded his interviews in a book called “Walking on Water.”
“We felt that he is a good keynote speaker to represent our conference because he did what we want our participants to do, which is to go out and ask people questions and find out what diversity is,” Spitz said.
Members of the conference committee said they hope this year’s conference will help promote a better understanding of diversity on campus.
“I think the NU community could be a lot stronger and richer if there were more sharing of diversity,” Spitz said. “I think the campus would be benefited if groups that identify themselves as diverse would work together and seek to cross some of the boundaries that may have been set up inadvertently by identifying with one ethnicity, religion or sexuality.”‘
Vanadilok said NU has “numeric” diversity, but effort is needed to achieve “substantial” diversity on campus.
“There is diversity on campus in terms of numbers,” he said. “But in terms of how people think of diversity, we have a lot of work to do.”
