Buttons that support communities of people with various identities on campus are often passed out at diversity events hosted by University of Idaho organizations like the Women’s Center and the LGBTQA Office.
Julia Keleher, LGBTQA Office program coordinator, said she sees more students sporting those buttons on their backpacks every year.
“There are a lot of people who are part of those communities or allies of those communities,” Keleher said.
Keleher said if diversity is an opportunity for each person to have a voice in the conversation, strong diversity representation means expressing different unique and intersecting identities.
Joleen Evans | Argonaut
President of the Association of Latino Professionals of America (ALPFA) Gaby Franco works after classes. ALPFA is one of the clubs that makes up UNITY at UI.
“I see diversity as distributing power, but when it comes to those of us who are in communities that are more marginalized — you know, in quotation marks kind of thing — a lot of times the power is not given to us to contribute to change or add our voices on a conversation level or social level,” Keleher said. “I feel like diversity is spreading out that power and giving everyone a chance to have a voice about things like how our university runs.”
Although university enrollment numbers might reflect a more homogenous population, Keleher said she believes that the university’s student community is not only increasing in diversity, but also in the variety of identities being represented.
“The numbers will sometimes say we’re a predominantly white, male institution, but I think there are more and more people coming out and talking about different identities,” Keleher said. “Our numbers for students of color are rising. I think we’re on the forefront of representing a diverse community and providing a wide education on diversity and social issues in the state of Idaho.”
During her time at UI, Keleher said she has seen a move to be more inclusive of different identities not just on a social level, but also on a university level.
“I’ve been here for about four years, I’ve seen a lot of changes and differences,” Keleher said. “The main thing is how our university and how our institution is viewing diversity. I was first part of the Women’s Center. Then my office eventually became its own department, and now we’re a small division, part of the Division of Diversity and Human Rights, and that’s a huge thing.”
Beyond new divisions aimed at promoting diversity representation, Keleher said the university has also employed a strong unit of individuals who are equipped to provide support to students from various backgrounds.
Student umbrella organizations on campus, such as UNITY, are also contributing to the increase in diversity representation.
Gaby Franco, president of the Association of Latino Professionals of America, has been involved with UNITY since her freshman year.
Franco said the purpose of the umbrella organization, which brings together 16 multicultural student organizations, is to help strengthen the voices of smaller student populations on campus.
“A lot of our organizations are smaller, we each have like 15 members or less,” Franco said. “Getting together so we’re able to act like a bigger population on campus, it helps us have a bigger voice.”
Franco said through UNITY, various multicultural student organizations help each other fund and plan events, like the Native American Student Association Tutxinmepu Powwow or Farm Workers Awareness Week.
“Everyone is welcome to come and enjoy these events,” Franco said. “Getting more support from the public would be nice and encourage inclusivity.”
While diversity representation on campus has increased, Kristin Haltinner, UI sociology professor and director of the Diversity and Stratification Certificate, said that the community can still take steps to become an even more inclusive and supportive environment for marginalized communities.
Haltinner said in addition to encouraging students to take courses that delve deeper into the nuances of diversity, the UI community can also work toward greater inclusivity by making room for more open discussions about race, gender, sexuality, age and other intersecting identities.
“I totally get people having a hard time talking about this,” Haltinner said. “I was a college student. I’m from Wisconsin, I grew up in an all-white community and I was so afraid to talk about race because I was afraid I was going to say something stupid. I get that fear, but if we let that fear paralyze us then nothing will change. We will continue to perpetuate inequality in systems.”
Keleher said it’s also important for students to remember that it’s a natural part of a human’s cognitive world to have biases or make assumptions about communities they don’t belong to. While these biases might be natural, she said students should always be questioning these assumptions about different social communities and trying to better educate themselves.
“If you have these biases or assumptions, it doesn’t make you bad, but you should actively try to make small changes,” Keleher said. “We can only make small changes in little parts of our world, but I think if we all make small changes in little parts of our world, it will reach out and touch our campus and create great change.”
Corrin Bond
can be reached at
or on Twitter @CorrBond