“Remember: A freer world begins with a freer mind,” said junior Aisha Fukushima in a “Reflection on Identity.”
Five students presented their reflections on identity as part of the Plenary Session of Whitman’s second annual Symposium on Diversity and Community. The theme of this year’s Symposium was “Unfolding Identities.”

“When we talked to faculty and staff and students about last year’s Symposium, one of the things they suggested was to include aspects of our community that were more varied,” said Dayle Smith, professor of physics and chair of the Symposium planning committee.

“I loved that the different topics covered were in themselves diverse,” said first-year McKenna Milici. “Everyone could take something different away.”

Senior Nani Gilkerson, who was a member of the planning committee, agreed that many people on campus wanted to include aspects of difference besides race.

“So what we ended up doing, I think, was creating a really broad theme, and in my personal opinion I think that that was probably one of the weak points of this year’s Symposium, that there wasn’t something that was clearly bringing it all together,” said Gilkerson.

Attendance at this year’s Symposium was down from last year’s. This is arguably attributable to the fact that there was no driving incident for the event.

“Planning this year’s symposium was challenging because it was inspired by MLK day, whereas last year’s symposium was our response to a particular incident on campus,” said Smith. “We cancelled classes, it was a big media event.”

The timing of the Symposium this year also affected attendance. Rather than having classes cancelled, the event was scheduled on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In addition, the weather on the day of the event was poor.

“None of us slept the night before, because we were worried about [attendance],” said Smith. “It was a holiday, it was really cold and snowy, so everybody who was there wanted to be there and that was really great but we were worried that the turnout wouldn’t be good.”

“We could have done more advertising,” said sophomore Missy Navarro, who was a member of the planning committee. Holding the Symposium immediately after winter break presented a challenge for advertising.

Another major challenge for this year’s committee was finding ways to attract first-year students on campus.

“I think it’s hard because they weren’t here for last year’s blackface event, and they don’t have any context for what the Symposium is,” said Gilkerson.

The planning committee worked closely with the RAs to promote the event. A portion of the RA training was devoted to talking about the Symposium and RAs were asked to promote the event at their section meetings.

For Gilkerson, one concern was whether the Symposium attracted people who might not otherwise be aware of issues of diversity on campus and in the Walla Walla community.

“The people that came and the people that presented were the people who really cared about the issues, so I think that in that way, I don’t necessarily know if that many people came who didn’t already feel like it was a pressing issue,” said Gilkerson.

This year’s Symposium was also a test to see whether the event should be continued every year. One idea is that it should be built into the academic calendar, like the Undergraduate Research Conference.

“We do have a grant that is an ongoing grant of $6,000 a year to do a Symposium-like activity,” said Gilkerson.

“I’m actually not sure,” said Smith, on whether the Symposium will continue to be an annual event. “I hope that we’ll continue to do it every year.”