“In one word, what does diversity mean to you?”

Ugh.

Ten other student leaders synthesized their thoughts and threw them into the conversations like cards into a top hat. All that came to mind was “buzzword.”

I couldn’t say that though. It was no place to start a ruckus and become belligerent. That’s what columns are for.

When the circle swung around to me, I provided a repeated “undefined,” bracketed with awkward hesitation. Thankfully, for once in a discussion about that degraded monolith, there was no hostility. There was no scoffing, no attacks. Just thinking.

That’s probably because no one really knew what to make of this non-aligned support group called “Student Leaders Diversity Dialogue” that Associated Students of Madison Diversity Chair Steven Olikara had set up. Especially me.

Olikara had a tenuous relationship with our paper. A previous article written by one of our news editors on Diversity Committee was met with immediate claims of bias. It was an opinion piece, not a news article, he said. It wasn’t, but seemed like it due to the overwhelming sense of inaction when describing its charge.

His whole year had been spent laying out a massive, big top circus tent of campus climate, but he never seemed to raise the pole — arranging meetings with MultiCultural Student Coalition, the Office of Diversity and Climate and a range of campus interests with something to say indicated future action, but nothing really happened.

Compound that with Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate Damon Williams’ yet unseen (or perhaps unnoticed) assurance that they’d be coming out with a “diversity tool” in February, and you can understand why I was a bit ambivalent when Olikara suggested I participate in a “Campus Leaders Dialogue.” I didn’t want more talking — I wanted some concrete plans.

But frankly, it couldn’t hurt. My assumption was that I’d saunter in, get dirty looks from a range of campus leaders and maybe have some deride my character and that of The Badger Herald.

That didn’t happen. Instead, there was a sense of productivity from most of those who left the room. Not anything concrete, but an understanding among members of groups traditionally involved in the diversity discussion and those not. Essentially, common ground was established between students in the minority and students in the mainstream white, straight majority.

The activities set up by the moderators were, to an extent, distractions. Migrating to one end of a room or the other to silently state one’s take on campus climate is wading into honest conversation when a dive is needed. And the loaded “Theatre of Oppression” skits played up the anecdotes of discrimination and prejudice with a built-in self-affirmation that we could all do the right thing.

But just talking was enough, frankly. And that’s important, because the “dialogue” aspect of diversity on this campus is negatively mythologized as lectures on white privilege, shame circles and “How does that make you feel?” approaches that would even make Stuart Smalley cringe.

This conversation allowed the mainstream voice to be as honest, without fear of reprisal.

For instance, one person in the circle brought up the usefulness of the Multicultural Learning Community floor in Witte. He wanted to get rid of it because it worked against its stated goal. Another suggested instead expanding MLCs to every residence hall. That would help!

No, it wouldn’t. Safe spaces like that end up becoming targets. All that does is create a singular space for racial and ethnic diversity while whitewashing the rest of the residence halls. If anything, it compartmentalizes it and works in a way of segregating the student body.

Normally, I would just think that. Instead, I said it and got nods. No accusations, no scoffs. Just a better understanding.

Now, there will likely be more meetings and things like the MLCs, Housing initiatives and campus resources need to be hammered out more concretely.

But there is a bit of a jump — last year fall, a group of students were ready to publicly shame students they assumed were directly opposed to their place at the university. Action had to be taken. Especially against the student papers.

That tension dissolved before my very eyes last Thursday. And having been in enough of these conversations, both from a Herald perspective and a Housing perspective, I didn’t think that was really possible.

Maybe Olikara is on to something. Campus climate means the atmosphere, the feeling in the air. And it can only be helped by conversations rather initiatives.

Now if only we could figure out what to do with that.

Jason Smathers ([email protected]) is a first-year graduate student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.