During the week of Sept. 21st-25th, Spring Hill College’s Center for Student Involvement put on Diversity and Inclusion Week.

The Center for Student Involvement and the Diversity and Inclusion Week Committee planned a mixture of both socially-distanced, in-person events and virtual Zoom events. These events allowed SHC students the opportunity to engage in conversations regarding all areas of diversity and inclusion. To put on these sessions, they not only collaborated with various organizations on campus such as MOCC, Campus Ministry, NAACP and Campus Programming Board, but they also worked with organizations from around the Mobile area, such as PRISM.

When talking about what students should take away from the week, the director for the Center for Student Involvement, Kristyn Russell said, “I hope that our students learn a little bit more on different elements of inclusion and diversity. Specifically, we talk a lot about social justice issues in the world on campus, but we don’t always talk about our next-door neighbors. So a lot of what we talked about through the Diversity and Inclusion week committee was bringing portions of our campus to light and really being able to highlight those on campus.”

Nicolas Johnson, a junior SHC student, said, “One of the things that I hope students will take from this week is the importance of knowing about and learning about different cultures and other ways of life that they may not be accustomed to.” In regards to having the virtual component this year, Johnson said, “Quite honestly I think we do better when we have events that are in person, that are direct and engaging. I’m still glad we’re still able to have these events virtually. It just brings a different component when they’re in person and it’s direct. But we still do a successful and great job regardless of how we think things are gonna go.”

In regards to how events of social injustice over the past few months have impacted this year’s Diversity and Inclusion Week, Russell said, “They’re very different conversations than they were last year. Not saying we didn’t have some of these conversations, but I think with George Floyd and some of these national attention matters, people are starting to realize this happens every day in our own neighborhoods too, it’s not just a national problem; it’s a Spring Hill problem, it’s a Mobile problem, it’s everybody’s problem, we all have to deal with it.”

The Center for Student Involvement sent out a schedule of events to student email accounts.