Nearly a year ago, diversity seemed to be all the rage on the Stater Forum page. I wrote diversity was a social mobility tool and the result of abiding prejudices and sweeping judgment. Former Stater columnist Beth Rankin went further in pointing out injustices she felt she experienced while a student here.

All the resulting buzz just proved even more that this campus needed the Commission on Inclusion President Lester Lefton commissioned the previous fall to study ways to improve diversity at our campus. The report’s most significant recommendation was the creation of a Cabinet-level chief diversity officer.

As a vested member in this community’s diversity initiatives, both personally as a gay Kent State student and publicly as the editor of Fusion, Kent State’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues student magazine, it was refreshing to find out the administration finally was looking to make progress in fostering awareness and education on the differences that bind us.

“But it all just doesn’t happen,” Lefton told the Stater for yesterday’s article. “Somebody’s got to be in charge. Somebody has to wake up every morning with the principal goal of their job to do something to bring people together to set up educational programs to work to ensure that life in dormitories (and) life in classrooms is, in fact, inclusive and diverse. That dialogue exists rather than a debate.”

This kind of thinking is exactly what Kent State needs. But, up until now, the idea of diversity this university has maintained often falls along lines of race. If we keep that up – if we hire someone with the unspoken but understood mission to exclusively improve both the perception and reality of race relations here – the commission’s year of work will go in vain.

There are more minorities than just black students at Kent State. Hispanic students. Asian students. Adult students. Gay students. Transgender students. Students with disabilities. Jewish students. Muslim students. And so on and so forth – technically, men are even in the minority here.

I agree with Ashley Tolliver, president of Black United Students, who told the Stater, “the word ‘diversity’ is being thrown around loosely.” But with all due respect, the discrepancies in diversity at Kent State go way beyond her criticism that we’ve all been “ignoring the fact that race is a big deal on campus.”

And as George Garrison, Pan-African Studies professor, told the Stater in an e-mail, “it is important we get someone who will … not be timid about implementing those strategies that will bring about real change.” But it can’t be simply “relative to black representation,” as Garrison continued in his e-mail.

What we need is an invigorated effort to better prepare all of us to enter “the world of the future,” as Pat Book, vice president for regional development, told the Stater – a serious, long-lasting effort in the best spirit of true affirmative action.

We are all ignorant of the slightest contrasts between us and our classmates, our administrators and all of those we encounter under the guise of the college experience. These differences have incited threats, such as those Rankin received after she ran her column last spring. They’ve been the subject of public scrutiny and discussion – the resulting Campus Conversation series continuing this semester. And the Stater editorial board and columnists will analyze and critique the playing out of diversity evermore.

But these are our lives we’re talking about. Diversity isn’t simply one of those generic buzzwords from which we’re disconnected. It is inherent in all of us. It is simply the awareness of what makes you different from me or from anyone else in the world. And when you break it down so simply, it’s obvious the challenge posed in trying to establish effective diversity initiatives on our campus of tens of thousands who, when it comes down to it, may share only one common blue and gold thread.

Last March, Rankin explained to this campus she was not a white bitch. She wrote she never wanted to be “ostracized” because of her race ever again.

Whoever chairs this diversity drive at Kent State will guide an ambiguous compass in defining an image on which the university can’t afford to appear behind the curve. He or she must look beyond age, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, language, physical ability, religion, family, socioeconomic circumstances and education.

The sum of these traits is diversity. One does not take precedence over another for the greater good. It’s a delicate balance, really. Is there such a thing as too much focus on diversity? At some point, it’s possible to pay too much attention to barriers you’re trying to tear down between people and end up perpetuating them.

White bitches. Black bitches. Gay bitches. Straight bitches. Men bitches. Women bitches. And all the other bitches in between. It’s time for us all to come together and figure out how to reconcile our collective differences to make our sum worth the commitment this university is making in better preparing us to do this diversity thing for the rest of our lives.

Adam Griffiths is a junior visual journalism major, editor of Fusion magazine and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. E-mail him at [email protected].