Workshop Highlights Diversity on Campus
Among the groups that presented at the recent Inclusiveness and Diversity workshop at CSU Stanislaus was the Hmong Student Association, pictured here at a previous activity on campus.
CSU Stanislaus demonstrates its commitment to diversity by encouraging a variety of activities that bring campus community members together to deepen understanding about each other. One such event was the recent Inclusiveness and Diversity Workshop.
The March 10 workshop featured wide-ranging presentations from on-campus groups as well as guests from the community. These included a musical performance by members of the Hmong Student Association; a talk on the stigma of mental illness by Dan Berkow, director of Psychological Counseling Services; and a presentation by the Multicultural Greek Council, comprising five fraternities and sororities on campus.
Community representatives included El Concilio (Council for the Spanish Speaking), PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and The Place (People Learning Acceptance Creating Equality), a youth support group.
Gender studies senior Jonathan Grammatico and Greek Life programs advisor and leadership coordinator Nicole Turner collaborated to organize the event.
“My main goal has been and always will be to make the campus an accepting place for all students and to ensure there is at least one fraternity, sorority, club or organization they can call home. While no single place is perfect, I think that workshops like this will increase the visibility, knowledge, insight and representation of students from all backgrounds,” said Grammatico, who is president of Love Evolution, a student-led organization that supports the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning) community.
Davont’e Wilson was among more than 50 students who attended. He remarked that the turnout was noteworthy for an event held on a Tuesday afternoon.
“This really shows how diverse we are as a campus. I grew up in the Bay Area, where diversity is nothing new. As an African American male, I was interested in how organizations from this area are able to provide for students with diverse backgrounds such as myself,” Wilson said.
The workshop was sponsored by the PEER (Prevention, Education, Empowerment, Relief) Project and Love Evolution.
To learn more about diversity on campus, read the University’s statement on diversity.