This past Monday marked the day when the large Rotunda hosted the yearly event that is Diversity Day for the first time since COVID, and it was bustling with life. Dozens upon dozens walked up to and waited to see the various booths scattered around to learn about all kinds of pressing social issues.
Each booth provided a sticker after the exhibit was done, which was then done on a “passport”, a simple slip of paper that went into a drum situated on a table when a stickers from all 7 booths was collected.
This passport, essentially, was a ticket for the raffle, and the prizes for winning this raffle were simple, yet appealing: gift cards for the Snooze Eatery, a breakfast restaurant with various locations in Colorado, or extra credit from a professor. At the end of the event, three winners were drawn from the aforementioned drum.
In the meantime, however, the booths were run by two or more volunteers who educated the people that came up to their booth. All of these booths provided a game to play alongside the content to further engage its participants.
A booth taught about Wealth Inequality in America. Alongside a poster board that displayed the facts about the topic, a Beer Pong type of game was played. Teams of two or three would try to get a ball in a cup, but the catch was this: the “rich” team had large buckets to get the balls in, but the “poor” one had only tiny cups to try and bounce the balls into.
The next booth taught about neurodivergency. This still followed the baseline of a poster board and a simple game. Certain phrases were needed to be correlated to on a non-verbal communication board, though the exhibit taught about other neurodivergent conditions as well.
Another booth teaching about American Sign Language did only one thing: people would point to a card with a picture of an object (take a camera, for example), and the people behind the table would teach them how to “say” that object in American Sign Language. Not a single word was uttered in the exhibit: every word was done in the sign language instead.
A more involved booth was the Privilege booth. A wheel was spun and focused on a specific category, such as race or social class. If a scenario applied to the player in this category, it meant they had privilege in that category. The lesson was that they have the potential to be an ally in this category, and in various ways as well. The poster board detailed those ways, such as being understanding to those who are underprivileged and taking a stand.
A Jeopardy-type game accompanied the booth teaching about social justice in healthcare, while a matching game accompanied the exhibit that provided information about the Colorado River. The final booth was related to unions. With fourteen statements about unions, people had to guess which of each was true or false.
When asking about why these issues were picked specifically, Kristina Kahl, the Faculty Advisor for the Sociology Club, explained that
“this [event] is put on by the Sociology Club, so it’s [these] students that pick the topics that they’re interested in that’s focusing on social justice.”
Each booth also provided goodies, which included buttons, bumper stickers, notebooks and more. These were provided by the Diversity Committee. Student Life provided another main attraction of the event: the free taco bar.
The taco bar let people freely make their own tacos in the style of a Mexican street taco, though breakfast burritos were also provided. Various toppings could be put on these tacos alongside a few meat options, such as cilantro, onions and corn salsa among others. Lemonade and water were also provided. Next to that was the drum where participants could insert their raffle ticket into.
The final attraction attached to the already lengthy list of attractions was a TV screen displaying various art pieces and a large speaker playing music. All of the artists and musicians whose art was presented were related to the issues displayed at the event, or were related to Native American Heritage Month. For example, Bobby Sanchez, an indigenous rapper, had their music featured at the event.
“The goal [of Diversity Day] is to kinda show some issues of inequalities that are going on … and then find ways to support it,”
Kahl further remarked. With all of these booths, games, art pieces, a raffle and a taco bar, Diversity Day has certainly found plenty of ways to get people to support their causes through the overwhelming success of this year’s event!
