Dinner With The President

Tonight a few students and I entered the fish bowl to share a meal with incoming President Joyner to ask her questions as the "Diversity Group." Before going to this meeting I had an expectation that we would get the same cookie cutter Wittenberg answers to our questions. However, this was not the case. President Joyner made it perfectly clear that she would be changing things here at Witt, starting with the way the school handles recruitment and finical aid. She asked us about each of our experiences on campus and being "diverse students", and if she thought that changed/impacted our career at Wittenberg. At first, I was a little taken back, but as it thought about it, it was true. What made me "diverse" had impacted my path here at Witt, for one I would not have been as involved in the Center for Diversity as I am. She then asked us if we had faced any sort of hard ship here because of our individual differences. Every student at the table had something to say, from signs being posted on their doors, to being called a racial or homophobic slur by another student. She was shocked that she hadn't heard about these instances before. When she asked us what happened on a day to day basis when these instances occurred, we all laughed, and one student said "Wittenberg doesn't do shit." Which led to a conversation about how things are frequently swept under the rug and ignored because its bad PR for the university. Needless to say we opened her eyes to several problems on campus. She decided to visit each one of our organizations to see what Wittenberg can do to encourage diversity and cultural education on campus. Dr. Joyner already cares so much about Wittenberg, which make me hopeful that things around here might change.