Leaders of several major campus organizations have come together to create a diversity and inclusion campaign, “For All,” to increase collaboration among organizations.
IU student organizations began meeting in a round table setting last semester following recent events surrounding diversity and inclusion issues on college campuses.
Sharing the name of a University-wide fundraising campaign, “For All” will be a collaborative campaign that brings student organizations together to create a more diverse and inclusive environment.
“We want IU to be a campus for all students,” IU Student Association president Anne Tinder said. “The vision is to basically build a coalition of student organizations and individuals who all support this idea of For All.”
Student organizations involved include IUSA, Black Student Union, Muslim Student Association, Union Board and others.
The campaign will be completely student-run. Tinder said this will help create an environment where students may feel more comfortable sharing sensitive stories and talking about these topics.
“I do think there is value in a campaign that is completely created and run at the student level,” Tinder said.
The campaign’s first steps will include building a coalition of other student organizations through speaking tours. These tours will be a way to get all students talking and sharing ideas on issues of diversity.
“The campaign will give us a more nuanced understanding of the campus and what really makes up a Hoosier,” John McHugh said.
McHugh represents Project Pengyou, an organization that brings Chinese and American students together to facilitate more interaction and discussion on foreign policy issues.
Once a coalition is built, they will launch a social media campaign to promote awareness through the use of videos and photos.
“I think organizations can be really creative with videos and photos about kind of how they fit in to the whole thing,” Tinder said.
One of the main goals of the campaign is facilitating collaboration between student groups that might not have otherwise worked together.
Tinder said a problem among student groups is they only attract people very similar to themselves even though the goal of a lot of groups is to create a more diverse space and share what it is like to have a common experience.
A way to improve relationships among people who have different experiences is for them to have a shared mission.
“I think ‘For All’ is just so inclusive that if we can get organizations to feel any sort of attachment to that name, then I think they’re much more willing to come together in the same space to do things,” Tinder said.
Representing the Muslim Student Association, the United Nations Association and the Arab Student Association, Dana Khabbaz said it is important to talk about diversity in an atypical way.
Diversity is usually looked at in terms of statistics, race or gender, but it’s more than that, Khabbaz said.
“Every single person has an individual identity and something to bring to the table,” she said. “It’s important to celebrate that.”
For Khabbaz and the groups she represents, this means talking more about minority religions and making sure they are included in issues on diversity.
Similarly, McHugh said there is a tendency to group people into communities of where they came from, but it’s important to stand together and find common experiences.
Although there is no specific timeline set, the goal for this semester is to have a core group of students involved and to set strategies for inclusive programming for next semester’s incoming class.
The campaign’s mission statement includes the phrase “one Hoosier nation.” The word Hoosier is important, Tinder said. It’s completely neutral and represents everyone.
“We’re trying to emphasize that it really is for everyone,” Khabbaz said. “We’re not promoting one person’s idea of diversity.”
