A month after a Georgetown student woke up with a swastika drawn on his body, more than thirty student organizations, including the Georgetown University Student Association, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Jewish Student Association and the Corp, held a second Diversity Forum last night, following up on one held last fall.
Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson and Associate Dean of Students Dennis Williams both attended, but neither spoke at length, instead offering brief introductory remarks.
“There are two comments I really need to make tonight, both of them are related to emotions,” Olson said. “The first set of emotion is one of real frustration, disappointment and real concern … The other very different emotion that I have is one of hope, of optimism. Because in the midst of [this year’s hate crimes], I see tremendous, broad commitment.”
For the majority of the forum, the sixty-plus crowd broke into seven small groups and talked about various diversity issues, including how the University could respond better to bias-related incidents.
One student suggested that the University add a more diverse range of classes, such as African American studies or gender studies, to the general education requirement.
Many students asked whether the forum was educating the right people, saying that the attendees already cared about diversity, and the students that most need to be educated would not choose to attend such an event. Most of the forum’s attendees were student organization member and leaders.
“[Education] isn’t what the point of the event was,” Eryn Schultz (SFS ‘08), one of the Vice Presidents of the Jewish Student Alliance and one of the planners of the event, said. “The point was more so that the University could hear constructive criticism in reporting [bias-related] events.”
The leader of last night’s forum, Hemly Ordoñez (SFS ‘08), also attended the first forum held in October, which was held in response to the Jena 6 controversy last fall.
“[Compared to the first forum], I think there were more concrete solutions that came out of the conversations, whereas the first one was mostly dialogue,” Ordoñez said.
NAACP President Ellie Gunderson (COL ‘10), who spear-headed the last forum, was pleased with the diversity of the crowd. She also hoped more could be accomplished after the second forum.
“There wasn’t any type of follow up initiatives in terms of different group leaders working together,” Gunderson said. “So I’m hoping after this forum, there’ll be more of a continuous effort and not just a one-time thing.”
