Diversity Committee brings culture to campus

The IU-Bloomington Diversity Committee gathered Tuesday to discuss the upcoming events on campus for spring, including a Holocaust exhibit and Diversity Day presentations with the theme of Civil Conversation.

The Holocaust exhibit “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals: 1933-1945,” is a traveling exhibit from the National Holocaust Museum sponsored on campus by 11 different IU organizations.

“The exhibit is composed of texts and photographs that focus on the persecution of gay men throughout the Holocaust,” said Doug Bauder, director of the Office of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Support Services and member of the Diversity Committee.

Bauder added that there would be several films shown on campus related to this topic throughout the exhibit’s stay.

The display will be in the Indiana Memorial Union Gallery next to Starbucks and spread throughout three different floors of the Union building. It will be here for two months, starting next Monday.

Diversity Day, the other main event being put on by the Diversity Committee this spring, will be March 9 and 10. Professor David Baker will kick off the event with a presentation in the evening on March 9.

Following, from 7 until 9 p.m. on March 10 in Alumni Hall of the Union, there will be a discussion panel composed of IU professors, administrators and students, focusing on the theme of Civil Conversation. The forum is free and open to all in the IU and Bloomington community.

Professor Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, chair of the Diversity Committee, explained that the event will open with a statement to frame the subject being discussed, with each panel member giving his or her position on the statement.

“Students will bring in commentary with their lives on campus, and we will also be giving a local and national perspective by allowing people to express their opinions in a civil and elegant way,” Calloway-Thomas said.

The panel will then open the discussion to the audience for a broad, interactive conversation on the issue of civil conversation today.

“By making this forum interactive, we will be showing and working with a model of how a civil conversation should be, instead of just telling people how they should converse civilly with one another,” said Eric Love, director of the Office of Diversity Education and Diversity Committee member.