A day off from class or a day to self-educate?

St. Joe’s canceled classes on Feb. 16 and held its third annual Day of Dialogue (DOD). The day consisted of 80 sessions and a variety of different events on campus. Each session explored different diversity, equity and inclusion topics, such as allyship, intersectionality and advocacy.

With so many sessions, there was a wide breadth of topics and sessions to choose from, all of which allowed for conversation, reflection and learning. The planning committee, made up of students, faculty and staff, worked tirelessly to make this day happen. Months of planning and organizing went into making the 100 hours of sessions and activities engaging and educational.

We commend the work that went into this year’s DOD and we hope the St. Joe’s community remains encouraged by the event to continue conversations around inclusion and diversity.

We also appreciate that classes were canceled for the day. Not only did this allow members of our community to attend and actively participate in sessions, but it also highlighted the overall importance of the day.

Despite classes being canceled, many students still did not take advantage of the educational opportunities DOD offered. The students who decided not to participate failed to recognize the importance of conversations related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

This day, that so many people worked on creating to educate and make our community a more inclusive place, was treated as a day off and the importance of the day was disregarded.

We, as an institution, have so much work to do. We all have blindspots and need to better educate ourselves about the different facets of racism and prejudice. DOD provides a platform to learn more
about a multitude of issues, such as racism, homophobia, classism, ableism and xenophobia. Those who ignore these discussions are also ignoring the diversity and intersectionality of their peers.

Our St. Joe’s community should want to go to these events. We should want to make our institution an actively anti-racist and an overall safer place; not to get praise, not because of extra credit, but because we actually want to learn.

The DOD organizers have given us all of the necessary tools for our community
to learn. We urge members of our community to reflect on what we learned from DOD or , for those who did not attend, on their decision not to attend any events. Caring for the whole person includes caring for each person’s different identities, and we all must want to educate ourselves for the right reasons if we want to truly create progress within our institution.

The Hawk welcomes Letters to the Editor, typically no more than 300 words. They can be emailed to hawk.editorial@gmail.com.