'Voices of SEMO' strives to stamp out stereotypes

On Wednesday, Oct. 12, a group of student leaders at Southeast Missouri State University invited other students to take part in an activity to challenge stereotypes within their communities. Students were offered free T-shirts with the words “I’m [blank] but I’m not [blank],” and were asked to use the first blank to describe themselves and the second to disprove a common stereotype related to that description.

This was the first of two events contained within a project called “Voices of SEMO,” which was born from the President’s Leadership Academy (PLA). Mahala Landeros, a participant in the PLA, said the project is part of a larger effort to combat stereotypes at Southeast.

“This was a way to continue the talk about breaking stereotypes since we had the ‘Ask a Blank’ booths in the spring, but the problem’s not done yet, so it’s not over yet,” Landeros said. “We’re still going.”

In only one hour at the University Center, Landeros and others were able to give out 150 shirts, each bearing a message of denial of stereotypes faced by different communities of students.

Landeros said participants in the PLA are given the opportunity to plan projects like Voices of SEMO and then to choose which of those projects would be best to pursue.

“Everyone is in charge of coming up with projects, and then they’re selected — which one’s we’re going to do throughout the semester for our campus,” Landeros said. “So this is part one of two for the diversity one.”

Bhanu Sehgal, also a participant in the PLA, said the projects must engage students in terms of three major objectives.

“We were to focus on the three institutional priorities,” Sehgal said. “[The] first one was comprehensive internationalization, second is to [raise] the retention rate to 80 percent and the third was to apply the recommendations by the diversity task force.”

Sehgal said Voices of SEMO was intended to incorporate all three of those priorities. Part two of the project will take place at 6 p.m. on Nov. 10 in the University Center ballroom and will feature a panel discussion regarding the importance of diversity.

In addition to the panel discussion, attendants will have the opportunity to speak with professionals from several occupations, as well as time for the audience to ask questions of the panel about diversity in the professional world.