By Rachel Bento

Contributing Writer

“What does diversity mean to you?” This is a question that the members of Delta Xi Phi asked their fellow UNH students as part of the annual Multicultural Awareness Week. On Nov. 17 the Delta Xi Phi women had a table outside of Union Court and got different students’ opinions on what diversity meant to them.

Delta Xi Phi is holding Multicultural Awareness Week at UNH, and the tabling event, “What Does Diversity Mean to You?” is one of the many events happening this week.

Simone Rivard, members of Delta Xi Phi, was helping run the table and spoke about the main goals of this event.

“This event is small but very important for students to understand,” said Rivard. “Our goal is to get people thinking about what diversity is and what it means to them since there are so many definitions of diversity and so many diverse identities and a lot of people do not realize that.”

At their table, the Delta Xi Phi women were happy to answer any questions about diversity that students might have and help them further their education on the subject.

Anna Parsons, multicultural chair at UNH and sister of Delta Xi Phi, is the founder of the tabling event that was held on Tuesday. Parsons was excited to bring more knowledge about diversity to the UNH campus.

“I think there is a lot of diversity issues at UNH, and since we usually do a tabling event during Multicultural Week, I figured we should do it for diversity because of…the diversity issues happening now, it was the perfect time to have this table up for students,” said Parsons.

The tabling event not only gave more information to students on diversity, but they had students actively learn and get involved with the subject. The table had little whiteboards available for students to write down what diversity means to them, and take a picture with their definition to be posted on the Multicultural Week Events page.

According to Rivard, the women of Delta Xi Phi have spent the whole semester planning Multicultural Week, the diversity table included, and they feel as though a lot of students need to be more informed on the true meaning of diversity since there is not a lot of racial diversity on campus.

“The diversity table is really relevant to the students here because in the state of New Hampshire we know it is a predominantly white community and while a lot of it has to do with there not being a lot of minority students represented on campus in general and we want people to realize that diversity is not just race or gender, it is a lot of things. Being diverse is what makes you, you,” said Rivard while discussing the relevancy of the topic at UNH.

It seems that their goal of expanding students’ knowledge on diversity has been working. Emily Sadoway, student at UNH, was pleasantly surprised at how informative this event was.

“I was surprised that there were so many definitions of diversity because when I think of diversity all I think of is skin color and what somebodies gender is, but when I read a few of the whiteboards they were saying religion and economic standings. Our campus could definitely benefit from more of these events,” said Sadoway.

For more information on Multicultural Awareness Week, Delta Xi Phi has a Facebook page with a list of the events and times.