Educational Programs and Campaigns
The Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) provides students with specialized professional development and educational programming, where challenges specific to marginalized students are addressed. The Know Your Rights training was a collaboration between the CDI and the Cedar City police department to inform students about their constitutional rights when interacting with law enforcement. The CDI prepares students for their future careers by providing workshops on how to run for student government, apply to graduate school, and more.
Campaigns
My Culture is Not a Costume* was an awareness campaign from the Center for Diversity & Inclusion aimed at raising awareness around the issues with cultural appropriation and the misrepresentation and stereotyping of cultures that continually stigmatize and overgeneralize marginalized communities. The aim of the campaign is to start a productive dialogue about how costumes and style can function to perpetuate misunderstanding about the real life experience of different cultural populations and in turn, negatively affecting the perceptions of them. All of the costumes held by our SUU students in the flyers have been used recently during Halloween time by users unaware or unwilling to see the impact these costumes can have on people who come from the cultures misrepresented in the images. Staff at the Center for Diversity & Inclusion are happy to engage in conversation about this campaign if you have questions.
*This campaign was inspired from the "We're a Culture, Not a Costume" initiative at Ohio University and other nationwide conversations about cultural appropriation.
Martin Luther King Day March
Juneteenth
In Solidarity with Mexico and Puerto Rico
In response to the natural disasters striking Mexico and Puerto Rico September 2017, the CDI created a passive campaign in collaboration with the Latinx Student Alliance to stand in solidarity and raise awareness.
Intersex and the Power in a Name
The CDI co-sponsored a talk with Women & Gender Studies and Utah’s Center for Rural Health Program by intersex scholar Dr. Georgiann Davis. In her talk, Dr. Davis discussed how the introduction of Disorder of Sex Development terminology allowed doctors to reclaim jurisdiction over the intersex body and the how intersex people navigate gender in today’s society.
Angelica Ross and Exploring Trans Identity
In preparation for Angelica Ross’s visit on campus, the CDI held Exploring Trans Identity, a conversation where misconceptions about trans identity were addressed. Angelica Ross is an American businesswoman, an actress, and a transgender rights advocate.
Indigenous Peoples Day
The Indigenous Peoples’ Day campaign aimed to raise awareness around the Native American struggle for liberation. The campaign followed recent declarations of October 9 as Indigenous People’s Day by the city councils of Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. Through social media and campus signage, the notion that Columbus Day should be celebrated was complicated in recognition of the genocide and displacement of indigenous people throughout the Americas.
Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women
Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW) campaign is an international effort to draw awareness to the failure of the Canadian and American governments to adequately respond to violence committed against Native American women. To amplify this conversation on campus, the Native American Student Association posted infographics and held a lecture where students and professionals presented research and shared personal stories about the high rates of violence committed against Native American women, mostly by non-tribal members.
UndocuAlly Workshop
In response to the rescinding of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), the CDI held a solidarity march in support of undocumented students on Southern Utah University’s campus. The CDI designed a workshop to educate the general campus public about resources for undocumented students, how to be an UndocuAlly and the misconceptions about the undocumented community in the United States.
The CDI collaborated with the Cedar City Library to screen Beyond the Dream, a documentary about the experience of the most recent generation of young undocumented immigrants. Dreamer activist Ciriac Alvarez Valle, CDI Coordinator Willy Palomo, and an SUU Dreamer were invited to discuss immigrants in Utah and the steps students and community members can take to protect immigrant communities. The documentary can be seen online.
The CDI has several ongoing trainings to educate the campus public, including student groups and faculty/staff on respectful conversations across difference, hard work vs opportunity, systems of oppression, unconscious linguistic and action-based bias, and the critical analysis of societal 'appropriateness.'
