UW-Madison junior Marie Tapp only budgeted food for about 20 students when she pitched the idea of a diversity forum to her house fellow two weeks ago. Instead, about 150 students showed up at Smith Hall Monday night.
Tapp said she intended the forum to address broad topics of race and diversity at UW-Madison, but articles published last week in The Daily Cardinal and The Badger Herald's opinion sections brought out a larger and more energized crowd.
""We obviously can't solve this issue all in one night, but we want to have a progressive discussion. We understand that people are upset, and we want to find a way to solve this issue of diversity on campus, or this lack of diversity on campus,"" Tapp said.
Hosted by Students for the Oneness of Humankind, the event clustered students into small groups that debated several topics, such as the role of race in admissions, the value of diversity in education and solutions to diversity problems on administrative and student levels.
House fellow Ashley Saffold, who helped organize the event, said she hoped the controversial opinion articles could act as a launching point for more students to interact and ""constructively and collectively move forward.""
""It turned out to be positive, I guess I could say ... It definitely ignited students to wake up and realize that this campus does need to change,"" Saffold said.
Junior Trisha Pedone said the event acted as a conduit for a healthy discussion of race and provided her some new perspectives.
Freshman Deonate Brown said he was pleased his group's conversations focused on individual experiences rather than generalizations about race, a possible sign the articles have facilitated discussion on campus.
""I'm the only African-American in my [first-year program] group, and I was telling them about the article, and they were like, ‘Yeah, I don't think that's right,' and I said I think it's going to help us, I think it's going to bring us together.""
UW-Madison vice provost for diversity and climate Damon Williams sat in with one small group and later said there's no ""magic bullet"" when it comes to improving diversity at UW-Madison.
""With how much effort we put into this, the outcomes are not sufficient ... I think looking forward it's not a matter of try harder, it's a matter of do better.""
