Diversity Appreciation

People always consider America as the place to achieve anything. It is a place where anyone, no matter where they are from, and be a part of the melting pot. But is that really true? With our country being at war and the economy being the worst its been since the Great Depression, we are in a vulnerable state. Alienating other for their race, beliefs, or sexual orientation could be the thing that completely tears this country apart. We need to embrace each others differences and actually unite to solve the problems this country has, not exacerbate them. The New York Center for Interpersonal Development (NYCID) knew this and wanted peace and understanding.

After the 9/11, Staten Island was in a fragile state and there were feelings of fear and anger that led to bigotry. The NYCID organized the annual "Celebrate Diversity!" festival at Wagner College to promote peace and understanding. The NYCID facilitated "yearlong series of interactive study circles". This group would meet every month to learn more about each other. They held activities that explores different cultures and their cuisines. Within the college, professors taught classes where students wrote about perceptions of others. The NYCID hopes that every year people will each will bring one more person to make the festival grow and to continue to spread the message of peace and understanding.

Diversity appreciation at Westminster is important because like anywhere in the world, we need to create community of equals that work together to make the world a better place. Westminster is praised for being a school with a great international program and we should not take advantage of that. I believe that Westminster does great things to educate people on diversity such as having clubs from different cultures and certain classes such as World Religions. Some things that Westminster can do to continue diversity appreciation is having classes that exclusively studies different cultures and having the clubs that represent each culture and come together to coordinate an event to celebrate all these cultures.