By Piper Sartison
Elm Staff Writer
From Oct. 25 to Nov. 5, the brothers of the Kappa Sigma Omicron Pi fraternity will be hosting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Week on the Washington College campus.
Multiple events are planned for students to participate in, as the fraternity is working toward raising awareness about the importance of diversity and inclusivity on campus. The majority of the events are open discussions that will be hosted at and around Hodson Hall Commons.
All WC students, staff, and faculty members are encouraged to partake in these events, regardless of their religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender.
“[We want] to facilitate a better campus community,” senior and Kappa Sigma Brother Michael Nichols said. “I think that, especially in recent times, there [has been] a lot of insensitivity…a lot of people are ignorant, and we want to give them opportunities to learn.”
The event that the fraternity hosted on Oct. 27 was titled “I Feel Welcome When…” Located on the first floor of Hodson Hall, the fraternity displayed a banner where students were encouraged to contribute and write about what they would believe would make the College a more inclusive community.
“You have a lot of people who do stop by who do actually take five minutes to think about something because they never really considered it before, and that was wild,” Nichols said. “It shows that they didn’t have that opportunity before.”
“One of the things we kind of realized is that a lot of the time, Greek life is a problem when it comes to diversity and inclusion, and we wanted to try to make our chapter start to move in the right direction,” sophomore and Kappa Sigma Brother Dylan Snow said. “We decided that the best way to do that was to host a series of events covering everything from sexuality to race…to try to help us embrace our identities.”
The fraternity also hosted a talk regarding sexuality on Oct. 25 in The Egg. At the event, Associate Professor of Spanish and Director of the Black Studies Program Dr. Elena Deanda-Camacho discussed the many “facets of sexuality,” including sexual education, sexual orientation, and rape culture to attendees, according to Nichols.
“We actually didn’t have any seats left in the Egg, [and that] was really awesome,” Nichols said. “We’re not faculty of the school but we can still impart some knowledge from working with people to educate [others].”
For the remainder of the week, the fraternity will be hosting six events, including the talk, “Bad Black Men and Angry Black Women: A Crash Course on Racial & Gendered Images in American Culture,” hosted by Professor of English and American Studies Dr. Alisha Knight; Open Mic Night at The Egg on Nov. 4 at 8 p.m.; and a Real Talk open dialogue in The Goose Nest on Nov. 5 at 7 p.m.
For further information, students are encouraged to check the email that was sent to students and staff from Associate Professor and Department Chair Dr. Aaron Krochmal at akrochmal2@washcoll.edu.
Photo by Kayla Thornton