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When Marcus Bragg visited K-State and took a campus tour, one element of the community that most attracted him was the diversity K-State representatives described.
When he arrived on campus this fall, however, diversity was not what he found.
“I was shocked when I got here,” said Bragg, a freshman in business. “When I was being recruited to come to K-State and went on a tour here, they preached about the diversity and openness here, which was not really the case. I definitely wouldn’t say that every student is like that, though.”
On Oct. 12, the Collegian ran an article about the Black Student Union’s BSU Represents event. In the month since the article ran, Kstatecollegian.com received almost 70 comments about the article. Some comments questioned the need for groups like BSU at K-State, and others were overtly racist, causing an inflammatory reaction from members of multicultural groups on campus.
According to the Office of Student Activities and Services, K-State has 22 multicultural organizations including the Asian American Student Union, Hispanic American Leadership Organization and Native American Student Association, to name a few. There are also fraternities and sororities that operate under the National Pan-Hellenic Council, a national organization with traditionally black and multicultural greek organizations, said Christina Patch, junior in accounting and member of Zeta Phi Beta sorority.
“I would say NPHC greek organizations are equally as active as other greeks on campus, but we have different programs,” she said. “We focus more on service rather than philanthropy, and we also do not have a rushing process. Instead, each member has a separate intake process.”
Patch said a common misconception about NPHC organizations is all members are African-American.
“We are very multicultural,” she said. “People think you have to be African-American to join, but that is not the case at all. Also, most people think all we do as a group is step routines. Stepping really isn’t a main focus for us at all — we only step for competitions or fundraisers when we are asked to.”
Patch said her sorority is an action-oriented group with a goal to gear campus toward more community involvement.
The Asian American Student Union, led by president Chinh Luu, sophomore in mechanical engineering, has similar goals of homogeny.
“We want to reach out to the rest of campus,” Luu said. “People look at us as outsiders and seem to be scared to approach us, and I think that’s because they don’t know much about us. That’s why we want to share our culture.”
Luu emphasized that Asian-American culture is a shared culture made of many different ethnicities.
“I think K-State can become more diverse if people just keep an open mind and realize there are more people on campus than just them,” Luu said. “If people want to know more about a group, they should just go to a meeting because anyone is welcome.”
One of the largest multicultural groups on campus is the Hispanic American Leadership Organization, which promotes diversity education along with leadership and retention of Hispanic-American students at K-State, said Elizabeth Renteria, sophomore in modern languages and social work and president of HALO.
“People think we are only promoting Hispanics but, like any multicultural group on campus, we are promoting diversity of people of all walks of life — be it your ethnic, religious or financial background,” Renteria said.
Many group leaders agreed the best way for K-State to be more accepting is to be aware of different groups on campus and keep an open mind about them.
“A lot of people here come from small towns way out in western Kansas and may not have met many Asians or other minorities,” Luu said. “It’s our job to raise awareness on campus and share our diversity.”
In a school where it is not uncommon to see Confederate flag stickers or license plates on a car, and whose football team’s defensive was once called the “Lynch Mob,” it is easy to see why many people are eager to support and spread diversity. As the online response to the BSU article showed, there is improvement to be made.
“Imagine if you went to a school where you were the only white person out of thousands of people,” said Marcus Bragg, freshman in business. “It’s not that we feel like no one wants us to be here, but it’s not an ideal situation. It can be intimidating to be one of a couple hundred black students out of 23,000 students.”
Many of the negative comments left online accused minority students of asking for acceptance and unity, then isolating themselves in groups such as BSU.
“BSU is not a way to isolate ourselves,” said Bragg, who was named Mr. BSU 2009. “It serves as a support group. Through the organization we can form new relationships and spend time with the group but also plan events and reach out to campus.”
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