The Center for Multicultural Excellence (CME) held their annual Diversity & Unity Retreat this past Friday and Saturday at the Red Lion Hotel Southeast Denver.
The retreat focused on educating a varied group of about 70 students on issues such as exploring identity and promoting inclusive excellence at DU and beyond by challenging themselves and others on issues of diversity.
Since the program’s inception more than a decade ago, the retreat has offered meals, a room and all the materials participants need to commit to the experience and learn about promoting diversity in everyday life.
Thomas Walker, director of educational programs & LGBTIQA services at the CME, organized the retreat with the help of CME staff, student staff and the retreat team which consists of students who participated in the retreat previously but wished to help in planning and implementing the this year’s retreat.
According to Walker, diversity itself is widely defined.
“It’s not limited to race, gender, sexual orientation, or politics – it’s learning style, region of the country. Diversity is not just a couple of things, and we want to engage as much of it as we can,” said Walker.
At the beginning of the retreat, the retreat team explained the three goals of the retreat: increasing awareness around issues of diversity, expanding networks while also building community and discussing action options.
The retreat took place in 27 hours, including free time, meals and sleep, consolidating a lot of information and discussion about issues such as worldviews- each individual’s way of engaging with and seeing the world- and systems of oppression- the idea that there is a one-up and one-down system for each identity.
“[We’re giving them] their first step into engaging inclusive excellence,” said Walker.
According to Aliyah Montgomery, a first-year psychology major from Denver, the retreat provided her with a chance to socialize and meet other people that she otherwise wouldn’t have met, especially as a commuter student.
“I really liked being able to hear a lot of other peoples’ views and perspectives on a lot of things because they were so different and we all came from diverse backgrounds,” said Montgomery.
According to Walker, instead of dedicating time to creating action plans, this year the retreat partnered with the Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL) for advertising and registration so that students had the opportunity to dual-register for the retreat and the Community Organizing Institute to gain skills for making change on campus and beyond.
“The retreat inspired me to get involved with a lot of other groups and see their perspectives. We can learn a lot by being in other environments,” said Montgomery.
So what are the next steps for members of the Retreat and those interested in issues of diversity?
“We want you all to leave here unsatisfied, yearning for more,” said Walker to retreat attendees.
Walker emphasized that participants should continue to educate themselves and go into their different communities, from Greek life to student government, and to engage diversity there.
“Inclusive excellence is the responsibility of everyone, not just CME, not just the student alliances, not just the teachers or that one student and not just that one month out of the year. We as a university want to have that excellence, so we all need to engage diversity all the time,” said Walker.
Students unable to attend the 2012-13 retreat are encouraged by CME to attend CO-LEADS (Colorado Leadership for Equity, Advocacy & Discovering Social Justice), a regional student summit from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 19 at the Auraria campus, or CCESL’s Community Organizing Institute from 1-7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 5.
The retreat is free for accepted students and past participants are encouraged to serve on the retreat team.
