My very first time attending a diversity and inclusion meeting was so much fun. I attended the Mixed Buckeyes meeting in the Student Multicultural Center for my diversity event. I was really nervous because I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t know if I was going to be the only undergraduate there or if I was going to be the only freshman. I had never attended an event before that discussed diversity and inclusion before in my life. When I was in high school, my school and town were not diverse at all so we never had events like this. I just had no idea what I was walking into. I had a positive outlook though and went to the meeting without a second thought.
I was the first one there. Nobody else showed up for quite some time and I was beginning to think that they had changed the meeting place or had decided to cancel the meeting. Right as I was about to leave and go to another diversity event, the adviser for Mixed Buckeyes entered the room. She introduced herself as Melissa Jacob and seemed a little shocked by how few people were there. She said that recently they have had a lot of people come to the meetings. When she said that, I became even more concerned that we were in the wrong spot. She told me that the leaders would have informed her if they moved the meeting or if they canceled it and she hadn’t received anything about it. We decided to sit there and wait for more students to show up. Finally, a girl with really curly hair walked in. She immediately asked if she was in the right location for the Mixed Buckeyes meeting. Melissa told her that she was and the girl took a seat. She introduced herself as Racquel and Melissa and I introduced ourselves to her. We sat there for a long time and just openly talked to each other about what the Mixed Buckeyes do and what usually happens at the meetings. Melissa said that the group is mostly right now just trying to get students to be involved in the group, but that the group’s overall goal is to provide a safe place where students of mixed-heritage can come together and understand what it means to be a student of mixed heritage and/or race. She also said that sometimes the group will plan events to get students to be involved with the group and other times the group will just have open discussions about diversity. I really wanted to be in one of the discussions where they talked about diversity and inclusion and culture because I want nothing more than to learn more about the world around me and the people in it. Like I said before, I came from a place where we had little to no diversity and so for me to go to such a huge school and see people of different religions, backgrounds, races, etc. it makes me interested in learning more about them and what life is like for them compared to how I grew up.
The meeting didn’t last too long because no one else showed up, but after attending the one, I know I want to be involved some type of diversity group. I don’t believe that there are enough events and attention focused on diversity and inclusion groups on campus. If there are, I just must not hear about them, but I definitely think that people should be more aware of diversity and inclusion groups. A little bit of change in a big college can go a long way in the end for the whole world.
Racquel (left) and Melissa (right) were the two people besides myself that could attend the Mixed Buckeyes meeting.