Nearly a year ago, Longwood University’s faculty senate passed a student-proposed diversity statement, the first of its kind. This semester, the statement hangs in the student union ballroom on a banner, adding a subtle accent to the room.
Students from organizations like the Black Student Association (BSA), Student Diversity and Inclusion Council (SDIC), Hispanic Latino Association, PRIDE and the Student Government Association (SGA) had collaborated and worked on the statement since 2015.
The Student Statement of Diversity and Inclusion was officially added to the student handbook for the 2016-17 school year.
Longwood alum and former BSA president Quincy Goodine ‘16 led its development, saying it was in response to what he considered racially related incidents on campus, specifically during the 2014-15 school year. He said students felt the university wasn’t following up on their claims, although he believed it wasn’t “intentional.”
“It seemed that when we were going to different offices on campus, it wasn’t dealt with as seriously. I’m not pointing fingers, I’m not saying mean names or anything like that. I’ve just heard a number of stories where student say, ‘I’ve put in a bias incident report or I filled out these forms and it just kind of went away after a while,’” said Goodine. “You know, that can have an adverse effect on students who are dealing with things. They’ll lose faith in faculty who are supposed to be here to help them.”
Therefore, his group dedicated time to developing the statement to represent student beliefs regarding inclusion on Longwood’s campus. But the statement was only the first step for the students’ larger mission for the campus to improve how it addresses the broad topic of diversity.
Currently, the banner in the student union, hung earlier this semester, is the most public display since the statement was approved.
Moving forward, students from the same organizations as last year are continuing to build on the statement’s foundation. Both current senior and BSA president Deja Mills and Goodine said the next step is “giving the statement some teeth.”
Mills said, “It’s not going to be a rule until there are consequences that come with it. We’re working on what those consequences would look like. Like if you go before the conduct board and things like that, how would that look and how people would report those acts of biases.”
Goodine added, “I mean I’m not trying to end anybody’s college career or adversely affect anybody’s college career, but just like there are consequences for the honor code, there should be consequences for the diversity statement.”
Director for Citizen Leadership and Social Justice Jonathan Page, who helped guide the student group last year, said the University Diversity Council is also working toward creating an official Longwood diversity statement and Longwood’s first diversity strategic plan. He credited the student statement for kickstarting the ongoing development of the university statement.
“That was the perfect catalyst for this larger discussion because we can say hey, students have clearly identified that there’s a need. We see that there are other universities around the country that have similar statements. We need to do likewise, we need to clearly establish that this is what we need,” said Page.
Page said he co-chairs the council with Dr. Naomi Johnson, a Longwood assistant professor and communication studies department chair. While the council has existed in various forms over the years, it had gone on hiatus for a period of time until this latest reiteration was organized last year in response to some student feedback.
On the student side, Mills said the Building Bridges series is one step their group is taking toward enhancing discussion of diversity and increasing campus feedback regarding the statement.
The first event was held on Feb. 16 in the auditorium of the Robert Russoe Moton Museum, organized by a student board with representatives from several organizations, including those involved in making the statement last year.
“We wanted to find out what people saw as an issue and how they thought we could fix it and just kind of get the community together, a bunch of different voices,” said Mills. “It’ll look different every time, it will be in different places every time, but we wanted to make sure we get people together and not keep hearing from the same voices.”
Through the series, different events encourage educational engagement in different locations to foster new voices to provide perspectives on how they feel the campus looks at issues of inclusion.
Goodine said, “The thing about fostering a more diverse community is you can’t have the same people showing up every week to these talks, you have to engage in these dialogues with students who aren’t there normally and encourage them to come and get them to kind of expand their views and be challenged and go home thinking about something new. That is the goal for these conversations.”
Mills said the students are also working to revive SGA’s diversity committee and researching language to help create a university statement to eventually present to Longwood’s Board of Visitors.
Beyond the banner, Goodine said he hoped the university would display the statement in a “more permanent fashion,” as the new buildings are constructed.
“You have the honor code in the library and you can have the diversity statement somewhere else on campus,” said Goodine.
Page said they needed to work to “make it a little bit more mainstream, make it a little bit more visible,” continuing to publicize it past the student handbook and banner. He believed it would create more discussion surrounding it.
“I think we need to have greater discussion about it, quite honestly, because there may be some people who would say that there’s no need for it and disagree with it so I think we need start engaging in even that discussion,” he said. “Universities are just microcosms of the real world and so the issues that exist in society are the same ones that exist on campus. We always have to be open to listening, we have to open to engaging.”
While he is happy the university is taking more of an active role as the project moves forward, Goodine noted, “This started with students and it should continue with students.”
As the University Diversity Council and the many student organizations continue to build on the student diversity statement, Goodine said he’s glad the progress hasn’t stopped with it.
“There’s definitely more work to be done,” he said.
Mills, picking up the baton left by Goodine, agreed and said, “I do think it’s a great statement, but I do think there has to be more. That was a great step and now we have to continue to be progressive and proactive instead of reactive.”
