…And Diversity For All

In room L109, there sits a shoe box office in the Student Organization lounge, the walls and shelves lined with achievements and accolades from Jose Vazquez’s Pre-Saint Xavier University Schooling. Assistant Director for Student Involvement and Multicultural Programming, he seems surprisingly young, but is well dressed and politely optimistic. He has the type of welcoming and easy going demeanor that some are either born with, or it arises out of having worked with many people.

It is everyone’s dream to somehow make a difference and affect the lives of those around them in some way. In conjunction with a handful of student organizations, Vazquez was able to do that through Diversity Week here at the university.

“Diversity Week is a program for the entire SXU community. It is put together and planned by campus and student organizations so they don’t necessarily have to be a multicultural organization. It’s open for the entire university, and the larger community. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a collaboration between these organizations and I wanted to bring that to the table. They can bring a different perspective,” said Vazquez.

This past Monday and Tuesday put a lens on Middle Eastern conflicts. The rest of the week was an amalgam of events that centered on a scattering of ethnic or minority groups including the LGBT community, veterans, and Mexicans, as well as various other cultures that were explored through the Study Abroad Panel on Wednesday, the Cultural Resistance Talent Show on Thursday, and a Multicultural Night on Friday.

“I’m excited about all of the events. I think that it’s a very comprehensive program, it’s very difficult to choose one [to be excited about] because they’re all very interesting and will bring an interesting perspective on different cultures and identities,” Vazquez said when I sat down to interview him November 7. “One of the things, as a community, that we are hoping that people take away is that we are a diverse campus and there are more opportunities to learn what diversity is. Alot of the events that they have are situated around current events, so we have lectures on Gaza and what’s happening in the Middle East, and stereotypes in the media.”

As he expressed his hopes on wanting the students to respond positively and really engage in the carefully planned events, people came knocking on his door, students and calls filtered in and out. A group of students came shuffling up to sign up for the Exploring Chinatown event that just passed on Monday. It is a wonder how a man as busy as him came to Saint Xavier.

He recalled that after working in Dartmouth in New Hampshire, he wanted to move back to the Midwest and closer to his family–but not too close, of course. His position here came to him by design, he had experience in both working with students and multicultural organizations.

“I just came here four months ago. Today is my fourth month anniversary!” He exclaimed. “I had a very welcoming experience from students, faculty and staff. I like that the community is very good about changes. Alot of the time people are like ‘Oh my God, changes ahhh!’ I have a view about the program, but that’s my view, I want to bring all of them. I want to get faculty and staff out of their offices and feel apart of the community.”

“I worked at the Community College of Philadelphia, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and University of Kansas City. Every institution is very unique. You’re very eager to learn, you’re very bright, you’re very polite, and welcoming and I like that—and by you, I mean students. The big difference between here and the other schools, I would say, is you’re in Chicago and there is the unique opportunity of being so close to so many different cultures as opposed to Dartmouth, where you’re in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t matter where you go. To me it feels like I’ve been here longer than four month,” Vazquez amended.

With Diversity Week stressing the opening up of a healthy discussion on prejudices and education, the issue of racism, and how it fits into the agenda was bound to creep up.

“I think, I’m definitely not an expert in race and ethnicity. However I have worked with a lot of faculty and staff so I’m always looking for experts who can facilitate discussions.” On whether it worked well in the past he had this to say, “It has worked very well, I consider myself someone who has a really good network from my experience with national organizations. For instance, at Saint Xavier we don’t necessarily have a multicultural student affairs, so colleagues that I know, they have that background on those specific topics.”

While he is not certified for that particular type of training, he feels that reaching out to his connections could help in his stead, which is just another way he gives back. Another way is advising the formation of a new Diversity Leadership Council.

“I’ve been working in other campuses, and I think even when we have different multicultural organizations on campus, there is a lack of communication between them. I will definitely be heavily involved. I’m going to be their advisor, I’m already working with the organizations as part of my work, and I’m already giving them leadership opportunities. With this other part of my job, I’ll be a guide and help them. I think this is something that I’m taking a lot of interest in,” said Vazquez.

The organizations that will make up the council include: African American Studies Diaspora Club, Alliance (LGBTQIA), Asian American Cultural Exchange, Black Student Union, Middle Culture Appreciation, Muslim Student Association, Students for Justice in Palestine and Unidos.

“We took that opportunity to talk about cross cultural programming. How do we, as a council, work together to make our voices heard as a community? I have been here for 4 months and at first I didn’t know how many multicultural orgs we had on campus. After learning that we had eight I thought it would be a good idea to bring in this one,” Vazquez said, expanding on his ideas pensively. “In a sense, the council is an umbrella. We haven’t discussed the actual structure of the council; we’re going to have at least one rep from each org to be at the meetings. We’re gonna talk about currents topics and what is our stance on them is as a group. The creation of this will help with the work we’re already doing.”

With the formation of this council Vazquez also added that he hoped they could do quite a bit of educating, not just cross culturally but helping students in the process of developing a sense of cultural identity.

“For instance, when you’re talking about Black History Month we can utilize the Black Student Union and Diaspora.What I’m hoping with this council is that we can talk about the influence of African culture in Mexico or Colombia. A lot of the organizations can do things independently but as a community you can accomplish more.”

Now that Diversity Week it is successfully finished I asked Vazquez on how he believed it went, how he felt about the turn out, and what improvement could be made for next year.

“Diversity Week was a huge success from start to finish. We were able to cater events for all SXU community. We had faculty, staff, students and event members of the community attending the events. I don’t think there were any weaknesses, but rather opportunities to make couple of improvements for next year. Every single event had a purpose and together we achieve the goal for each event.

I truly believe that the success of this program was the collaboration between the RSOs and the offices/departments on campus. Each of them brought a unique view on Diversity and that played a huge role on each of the events. I think we increase awareness about diversity on campus and how it goes beyond race and ethnicity.

Following this program, the Diversity Leadership Council has the opportunity to continue working together and program events that not only bring different communities together, but also educate the larger SXU community about diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice.

Zhana Johnson
Senior Features Editor