Diversity forum

Yesterday we were scheduled to have a forum on the recent acts of racism and homophobia on campus from 11:30 to 1:30. I suppose "recent" isn't exactly the right word though, as this has been happening since well before I came to Denison. It's just been very much a big topic recently. It was surprising at first, since I hadn't really witnessed most of what was being discussed. But this is probably just because I have my group of friends, who are good people, that I hang out with and probably about 5% of the campus comprises the douchebags responsible for everything. And it probably occurs mostly in areas that I tend not to frequent (ie Shorney). Anyways, the point is 2 hours of our academic day were supposed to be completely shut down in order for the entire campus to discuss the issue in Mitchell. We were put into small discussion groups and then there was supposed to be 20 minutes of open mic where people could come up and talk about what their groups discussed. Students rebelled in response to this time limit, and faculty and staff largely supported them (Dr. Kuhlman, who was representing the faculty, did at least). The librarian said that as far as she was concerned the library was closed until every last person who wanted to talk got a chance to talk. Well, the forum didn't end until after 8. That's more than 8 hours. And a decent portion of the campus stayed the whole time (a couple hundred). I'm not going to go into what was said, because quite frankly there was a lot of it. And I'm writing this post before physics, which I have to go to in a couple of minutes. Quiz and all. Plus I'm still sort of processing it all. A lot of people gave very emotional speeches, and it definitely gave me something to think about. I'm sure it will be a huge topic of discussion on campus in the coming weeks, and I don't think that the issue will go away for anyone who is currently attending Denison. I think that this will have an affect on the freshmen which will last even up until their senior year, and if the changes that were discussed begin to come about in the next year or two, students who do not yet attend Denison will be affected by this as well.