The MultiCultural Student Coalition is a dynamic group on campus that extends its services of diversity education to all students on campus with a specific emphasis on social justice and campus climate. This specific focus is meant to respond to students whose needs are often unmet or underdeveloped in an intuitional setting. While MCSC has been established on campus and working to improve campus climate since the late 1990s there have been previous efforts by students who push the administration to bring campus climate and diversity to the center of our core values for the benefit of us all.

Each generation at the University of Wisconsin has had a multicultural student group on campus that has worked tirelessly to improve the conditions that students, staff and faculty face who are from marginalized and underrepresented groups. However, there's still much work to be done.

The most recent predecessor of MCSC was called the Minority Coalition, which responded heroically to the blatant racist thought that led to a mock slave auction by one of the Greek fraternities on campus in the 1980s. This was only the straw that broke the camel's back, and the Minority Coalition mobilized students from all backgrounds — graduate and undergraduate — to demand better from UW. Under former Chancellor Donna Shalala, the first diversity initiatives, including the Madison Plan and the UW System Design for Diversity, were constructed through the pointed and intentional demands of the Minority Coalition. Out of this came the Multicultural Student Center and the Holley Report. Plan 2008 would later come out of this.

In 1999, a year after Plan 2008 began, a group of students housed in the Multicultural Student Center saw the need for a student-run office that could proactively respond to the changing needs of campus concerning social justice, diversity and climate in the ever-so-important "by-students, for-students" format.

Currently, MCSC exists as a resource for both the novice and advanced student seeking to learn about, be engaged in and work toward transforming our campus around social justice, diversity and climate.

For diversity initiatives such as Plan 2008 to work, we need to be committed to making our climate one that is hospitable and inclusive. MCSC has been in dialogue with campus police and Wisconsin Union security addressing recent controversies that occurred when Lambda Theta Phi's "Seductive Ritmo" was cancelled earlier this semester. Our dialogue with campus security also focuses on hip-hop oriented events held by students of color organizations that have been unfairly profiled as disruptive before they even take place. This is just one example of how students have become both bearers of discrimination and bearers of the responsibility to educate their campus by creating dialogue and proactive planning for students who have not been able to be themselves in the current campus climate.

The University of Wisconsin is a wonderful school; however, there must be improvement when it comes to campus climate and the social issues surrounding it. What MCSC has noticed from researching, listening and observing over the years is that whenever change is made with regard to diversity issues, efforts to initiate change and inform why change is needed has mostly come from students — predominately students of color. Students have been the ones to protest, to rally in the streets and demand the university take notice.

Metaphorically, students of color have been slitting their wrists and bleeding for this university for years. Students of color have shouldered heavy burdens, especially considering that making it into this institution is disproportionately a problem for us. Student-run initiatives like MCSC are essential to solving the cause of the problems, not just the symptoms. Additionally, they cannot shoulder the burden by themselves.

The burden must be carried by the many people holding administrative positions who make upward of $60,000 per year that are in a position to be proactive. Campus climate and the bridging of different groups, opinions, upbringings and backgrounds on campus must be a collective effort where centralized communication is a key.

The university must make it clear to students and parents alike that at its core values are the expectation of all its students to engage in honest and open dialogue about these topics; that ignorance, racism and intolerance are not acceptable, from the very moment they step foot on this campus. Further, it does not end with students of color but also extends to faculty and staff of color on campus who also need to be supported. If students see the faculty and staff aren't being supported, they, themselves, will find support hard to come by.

With the end of our second 10-year diversity plan coming to an end, we as a collective community have the responsibility to insist on real outcomes for the next go-round. Have we really come that far?

This article, like so many others, will most likely be bombarded with anonymous online spews of racism and white, patriarchal power hegemony. At MCSC we have a saying, "100 percent realness: All day, everyday." There needs to be more spaces for students to talk and build relationships deeper than on a surface level, while still promoting constructive, rather than destructive, dialogue that leads to action. We must not get stuck in talk. However, before we walk we must learn to crawl. The next plan must have more short-term goals for which we can truly hold people responsible.

Katrina Flores ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in Chinese and Chicano studies. She is also the executive chair of the MultiCultural Student Coalition.