Empowering Conversations: Diversity and Inclusion at Juniata College ROSALIE RODRIGUEZ: So to me diversity is-- EZRA HALSTEAD: A community that is all together, even though there are plenty of differences. QUINN WESTLAKE: Groups of people that are from different backgrounds. And you bring them together in one cohesive space. VENEKA MAHOMVA: It's just having a lot of people involved to create a cohesive group. ROSALIE RODRIGUEZ: Diversity simply means nothing more than difference. Are we at Juniata mirroring the society as a whole? So we want ourselves to be recognized as a nationally ranked and important liberal arts institution. Then we should have mirrored in our population the same diversity that is mirrored throughout the United States. VENEKA MAHOMVA: We're trying to learn. And I think that the more we're able to expose ourselves to different things in that time period, the more we're able to learn, and the more we're able to grow. QUINN WESTLAKE: Diversity is important to our society. In the context of Juniata, we are very big on our students that come abroad. But we don't really emphasize our students of color that come in domestically. EZRA HALSTEAD: There need to be more faculty and professor, staff, and faculty meetings, or different training sessions that need to happen. I think that's where it starts the most. Because especially the professors, they are the people teaching the students here. VENEKA MAHOMVA: I think just continuing to encourage students to say what they need and what they want. There is, I know, one student who started a petition for inclusiveness for transgender students. And I think that's a great platform in the fact that the school had a mechanism for him to go through and get what he needed, what he wanted, said. EZRA HALSTEAD: I do think Juniata has a lot of improvements to make with diversity and inclusion. But overall, they do try to hear everyone on campus. And this goes for most of faculty and staff here. They do try to listen to issues that are on campus. QUINN WESTLAKE: I think that Juniata is really taking the steps to go in the right direction. I know that this year in particular, we admitted a significant more amount of students of color than we did my freshman year. ROSALIE RODRIGUEZ: We've made great strides in those areas on the diversity front. But along with that has to be the inclusion part. So diversity is basically getting people in the room. Do we have a lot of people from different backgrounds? Do we have a lot of difference? We have people from urban areas. We have people from outside of Pennsylvania here. The inclusion part is the important part. Are they participating? Are they fully integrated into the Juniata community? EZRA HALSTEAD: Diversity is important, because these people are all around you. Everyone around you is different. They're your neighbors. They're your sisters. They're your brothers. They're your friends. And in order to live a just life, in my opinion, you need to be able to respect others and help others when they need it. VENEKA MAHOMVA: Diversity is the flavor of life. And it helps to keep things interesting really.