To the editor:

The following is a letter to the students, faculty and staff who participated in the Forum on Diversity and Inclusiveness held at Binghamton University on Thursday. While it is directed to the participants, I felt it was important to share with all of your readers.

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Dear New Friends,

We came together recently to talk about relationships between people who are different. I recounted the event of last spring when an anonymous person drew a man urinating on the continent of Africa in a classroom where many African American students were about to take a class on civil rights. At that time I wrote to campus expressing disappointment and reaffirming our goal of inclusiveness and respect.

The responses I received from that letter led to three very different conversations: one with an individual who said condemning the drawing was my attempt to quash freedom of speech; another with students from the class where the drawing was found, who said I should have included an image of the drawing with my letter; and another with a gay student who asked why I didn’t apply the same level of public disappointment toward the “preacher” who stands on a campus bench several times a year proclaiming that Jesus Christ can cure homosexuality.

Those three conversations made me realize just how complex it is to move from being a diverse, multicultural campus to an inclusive one and we needed to talk about it. As a result, we held our first Forum on Diversity and Inclusiveness.

Participants rotated among five tables to discuss questions including: How do you interpret diversity? How do you perceive the campus culture? What can you do to affect a change to the campus culture? How can people with varying traditions, beliefs and values learn to live together in the same community? What role has diversity played in your college career?

You talked, wrote, drew and shared your thoughts on these questions for more than two hours. Each question was answered by each participant, switching tables and questions every 15 minutes, with a different mix of students at each table during each segment. We learned that discussing a topic among a diverse group is not easy or natural. Answers came down to your willingness to be open and to learn about others’ cultures; finding common ground, not focusing on differences; and speaking with sensitivity and listening with thick skins.

I sat in the background of each table to listen to and learn from your conversations. You were open, sensitive and profound and you made me proud. But I feared that when we left the room we would lose all we had gained, so I challenged you to do one “random act of inclusiveness” (RAIs) each week, to total more than 1,000 RAIs by the end of the school year. Then one of you said, “Let’s do this again and next time bring two friends.” … I smiled. Then several of you moved the night’s discussion to a lounge to continue the conversation. I smiled wider. Something had happened and was taking people’s minds and hearts in a good direction. I left feeling hopeful.

My laptop screen saver now includes photos of the words and art you created that night. Thank you for one of the most positive experiences of my career.

Sincerely,

Harvey Stenger

Binghamton University President