Student Affairs Urges USC Students To Talk About Diversity #Together
A golden balloon arch over Tommy Trojan marked a new campaign for diversity on USC’s campus. On Tuesday afternoon, Student Affairs launched a new way to market campus diversity to the students through the hashtag, “TogetherUSC.”
Combined with several campus cultural communities, Student Affairs held a launch party event to build awareness about the new diversity hashtag in front of Tommy Trojan. During the event, organization members gave cupcakes to attendees who posed with signs describing different aspects of diversity that matter to them.
Billy Vela, Director of El Centro Chicano, said the purpose of the campaign is to provide students with the tools to help them support each other.
“The main goal of the campaign is to provide students with the tools to help them support each other, while also knowing that all of the cultural and advocacy centers are here too and always wanting to help them in any way we can. We do this throughout the year with various programming but also through one on ones with students and building relationships with our students.”
Rosalind Conerly, Assistant Director for the CBCSA (Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs), was one of the directors on the event’s planning committee. She said the campaign is a way to help the students become more open about diversity matters on campus.
“For us this was just a start to re-enforce the services that already out there – the Trojans Care for Trojans as well as the basis reporting. Those are two things that are already available to students, we just try to package it under this hashtag, Together USC.”
Diversity on campus has been a dominant conversation among students this semester. Jonathan Wang, the Interim Director for APASS (Asian Pacific American Student Services), explained that the new #TogetherUSC initiative is “creating a culture of care on campus. We are looking to see how we can make it a more inclusive campus.”
While Student Affairs is working hard to build awareness about diversity campaigns like Together USC, most students seem to be unaware of the efforts being made.
USC senior Lauren O’Neil admitted that she walked right by Tuesday’s #TogetherUSC launch. She said she only stopped after accidently confusing the launch event for the worker’s protest, which caused the #TogetherUSC celebration to end early.
“I was at the campus center during the protest yesterday, and a lot of students didn’t know what was going on. Didn’t care, didn’t ask.”
The #TogetherUSC campaign is supposed to inspire students to be more honest and encourage them to engage in open conversations about diversity on campus. So, will the program be a success? Or is it just another feel good idea, full of balloons?
