Conversation on Commonalities addresses diversity problem at NEIU

The Golden Eagles Room held the first Conversation on Commonalities event on Sept. 29, hosted by the 2010 Black History Month Committee (BHM), and supported by the Hispanic Heritage Committee. Retired Northeastern professor Dr. Barbara Scott and Senior Executive Director Emeritus Dr. Santos Rivera addressed current problems regarding diversity and what it should mean to students and staff.

BHM Chair Robert E. Bedford and Event Chair Dwan Buetow announced that the theme of the event was "the right to dream," and followed by presenting the speakers. Afterwards, five students performed the poem "Human Family" by Maya Angelou, taking turns reading stanzas in both English and Spanish. The students that performed were a mix of undergraduate and graduate students and memorized the poem days before the event.

"My mom put [the event] together and a few of us students volunteered to [recite] the poem," said Dana Buetow, a transfer student. "I'm half black, so African-American history [involvement] is the kind of stuff that me and my mom always do."

Scott spoke first, and said that a conversation on commonalities was "long overdue" at Northeastern. According to her, people cannot ignore cultural differences and must value both those differences and commonalities in order to respect one another. Scott then stated two problems she found at NEIU, "Not one new hired faculty member this year is African-American," and then stressed that something needed to be done about this. The second problem she mentioned was immigration. She believed that immigration is represented as a "one-sided discourse" because other cultural groups are not as included in immigration programs as much as Mexicans are.

Rivera's discussion focused on his belief that marketing NEIU as diverse simply because its students come from various backgrounds is not enough to actually be diverse; students have to branch out and be willing to engage with others from different cultures. Then, Rivera mentioned how the NEIU tagline "Learn in the city, lead in the world," seemed misleading to him because it was created without input from people of color. The floor was open for questions before a multicultural potluck was presented, and students received feedback and suggestions from Scott and Rivera on how to initiate "extreme student activism" in order to improve relationships among others.

"This is an extremely diverse campus, but one of the few times you can really see that is when tables are set up outside and you can get a variety of information about cultures and societies," said Win Rysdahl, a senior and one of the students who asked a question. "Even if [what youw want to know] has no connection to you, just ask." Rysdahl appreciated the event, though he wished it could have lasted longer. "I thought that the contributions put in by Dr. Scott about nationalism were more profound than she gave credit for," he said. "I liked that they encouraged at several points to have this continued. Like, OK, our conversation on commonalities is over--so what? Keep talking [about it]. The day is over, so what? Keep talking."