|
Community Mural Helps Students,
Faculty and Staff Take Stance on Campus Diversity
Ioana Patringenaru | May 14, 2007
“To be a student and not a revolutionary is a contradiction.” That message appears on a mural that will soon be on display at the Cross Cultural Center. Dozens of students, faculty and staff turned out last Tuesday at the Price Center to help highlight diversity at UCSD by painting pieces of the mural.
|
| Students help paint a movable community mural at the Price Center. |
Click here to view the slide show.
|
|
“It’s a solid message,” said Glynda Davis, director of campus diversity initiatives. “When I look at this message, I think it speaks to educated students’ responsibility to participate in society.”
Students’ role is to challenge the status quo for those who will never have the opportunity to do so, she said. While she talked, Davis sketched in pencil the contours of Central and South America on one of the mural’s pieces. Nearby, Katherine Arias, a fifth year, was taking a break after a final by painting. The mural will help students of color feel included at UCSD, she said. She added she decided to take part in Tuesday’s mural-making workshop because the Cross Cultural Center has become like her second home on campus and makes her feel connected. She is a member of the UCSD chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, or MEChA. The organization meets at the Cross Cultural Center. Arias said she often also eats, studies and naps there. “It’s a special place for me,” she said.
The UCSD Raza Awareness Committee designed the mural project as an inclusive, campus-wide activity. They invited a broad spectrum of student organizations, including members of the Student Affirmative Action Committee, to submit content representative of UCSD’s many communities. The Chancellor’s Diversity Office supported the effort. The mural, designed under the guidance of artist Armando Cepeda, includes a raised fist holding a diploma, a rising sun and a globe with a world map. Tuesday’s mural-making workshop took place during Raza Awareness Week. Cepeda, the muralist, said he would probably give the work a few finishing touches and varnish it before delivering it to the Cross Cultural Center.
“It’s going to look good,” he said. |
