February 3, 2012

The One Mizzou campaign is working on an “I Celebrate Black History” campaign during the month of February to help raise awareness and prevent hate crimes that have occurred the past two years during Black History Month.

One Mizzou plans to put up banners in the MU Student Center featuring photos of students who support Black History Month and diversity on campus. In addition to the banners, One Mizzou hopes to create a sense of respect and belonging for the student body that will last beyond February.

“It’s important that we celebrate each other and don’t put each other down,” Legion of Black Collegians President Whitney Williams said. “The hate crimes are hurtful to everybody, not just for the people they are directed at. We want students to know we are working hard to make this campus more inclusive.”

Recently, One Mizzou has redesigned and redeveloped its website. The website showcases One Mizzou’s mission statement to clarify its message to students.

“On our newly-launched website, we are starting to use the phrase ‘creating a purposefully inclusive campus,’” said Sean Nahlik, Four Front chairman and Maneater staff member. “We had an overhaul of One Mizzou lately, and the website shows the new ideology behind One Mizzou.”

Missouri Students Association President Xavier Billingsley said One Mizzou has changed since its initial launch in April 2011 in the sense that it has become more of a “think tank” rather than just one organization.

“A lot of students have the perception we are supposed to do programming, but that’s not the case,” Billingsley said. “We focus on brainstorming to make the campus more inclusive and work with other groups to help with their programming.”

One Mizzou’s leadership team includes Billingsley, Williams and Nahlik, along with leaders from the Graduate Professional Council and Panhellenic Association. These leaders work together to form the short-term and long-term goals for One Mizzou.

“Our short-term goal this semester was setting up the website, which we have already done,” Billingsley said. “Some long-term goals of One Mizzou include maybe collaborating with dialogue programming. We would also like to include more dialogue between students.”

One Mizzou hopes to work with the university in an effort to create a diversity course requirement for the future. Also, as mentioned in his platform for MSA president, Billingsley is working toward creating some sort of “One Mizzou Week.”

“One Mizzou Week is still something that can possibly be done,” Billingsley said. “I would like to have speakers come and encourage dialogue for students centered around diversity.”

The One Mizzou leaders have been working together to not only prevent hate crimes, but also encourage a diversity-friendly campus that welcomes everyone. Through their brainstorming and branding of One Mizzou, they hope to spread their mission and move towards their long-term goals.

“Through our efforts, we want to encourage the university to adopt diversity as the fifth core value,” Nahlik said. “Imagine during Tiger Walk people are running through the columns and ‘diversity’ is there, right in the center of the columns.”

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