Diversity Week took place last week and was filled with activities involving organizations associated with the Diversity Leadership Council to promote open conversation and learning.
Junior Public Accounting and Political Science major Haley Coller is a member of organizations that hosted events throughout the week, but she also attended many others hosted by other organizations.
“Diversity Week highlights different arrays of platforms of diversity on campus whether that be race, sexual orientation, gender. There’s going to be different organizations associated with the Diversity Leadership Council that are all promoted under the umbrella of Diversity Week,” Coller said.

“Diversity is everything we are and everything we are not.”—Kata Traxler

Diversity can be difficult to explain because it has a broad definition. Assistant Director of Multicultural Student Programs & Services Kata Traxler describes diversity the way she views it.
“Diversity is everything we are and everything we are not. Everybody is diverse whether it is race, religion, ability. We all come from different places and bring different aspects of ourselves to the table,” Traxler said.
Traxler shaped her definition for what it means for her specifically.
“Diversity for me is appreciating differences and learning about them. Diversity needs to have a communication line between others. We can appreciate all aspects of diversity and we can talk to each other. Hearing about personal experiences from others goes a long way when you are trying to understand diversity,” Traxler said.
One point the event hopes to make is that diversity goes beyond skin color and race. It involves other differences that are much harder to notice strictly from appearances.

“It’s important to show Gustavus is a very diverse community, not just racially.”—Haley Coller

“It’s important because if you look around diversity spans far and wide but a lot of people have the misinterpretation that diversity is about what people look like on the surface. Diversity Week is a great way to highlight the spectrums of diversity,” Coller said.
Diversity Week is sponsored by the Diversity Leadership Council (DLC) which organized events for the organizations to interact and have discussion. Senior Jameiley Aristede is the Public Relations chair of DLC and discusses the intentional mixing of campus organizations.
“We started a DLC mixer so the organizations can get to know each other better. There are four categories: gender and sexuality advocacy, interfaith, intercultural and ethnic conversation, and political and social dialogue. There are a lot of orgs and not everyone gets a chance to interact. Through our mixers other organizations can learn about what the others are,” Aristede said.
Through Diversity Week, students have a chance to explore the wide array of organizations and groups of students who are diverse, though not in ways they may originally think.
“It’s important to show Gustavus is a very diverse community, not just racially. It’s a good way to shine the light on groups of people who are not the socially accepted norm and bring the more accepted community to engage together. In general we are a wide branching community so I think it’s important to have this framework where we highlight these groups that could be overlooked,” Coller said.
The week’s worth of events closed with the Diversity Ball on Saturday evening. The event recognized several accomplished students for their work toward diversity understanding.
“Diversity ball was my favorite part because it was the close and it gave the chance to acknowledge people and different organizations. It was the final hurrah after the entire week,” Aristede said.
Diversity can often be a sensitive issue to discuss. This week was intended to give students many opportunities to learn without fear of judgment.
“These environments are open and safe for people to come to with no knowledge of diversity and really learn a lot. If you weren’t able to make it to the event, feel free to reach out to people on the DLC and they would be happy to talk to you about the cultural diversity at Gustavus,” Coller said.
For more information on diversity or Diversity Week, contact Kata Traxler in the Diversity Center.

-Laura Isdahl