Hundreds of people filled the streets of Buffalo on June 4, 2023, to celebrate the annual parade for Pride Week. Among the people at the parade celebrating were multiple students from Buffalo State University, wearing custom-made shirts to represent the school to the best of their ability.

This is just one example of efforts being made to help continue with a proper growth of diversity and equity at BSU.

Luke Haumesser, member of the BSU President’s Council for Equity and Diversity and director for Student Leadership and Engagement says that BSU is always working on events that shine a light on different backgrounds.

Haumesser was first appointed to the President’s Council in 2021, and for these past three years he has had the task of representing student life activity and working with campus faculty to create events that coincide with a high level of diversity and equity.

Research done by collegesimply.com, a website established to help junior and senior high school students select the right college, showed that BSU is a campus with a wide range of diversity, with 26.9% of students being African American and 11.9% being Hispanic or Latino.

An event done to represent this diversity and equity was a film screening based on the documentary 848: The Criminalization of America, followed by a panel discussion with director Thomas Freeman. The film was based on the U.S. code 848, also known as the Kingpin charge, which called for all drug Kingpins to spend life in jail.

This event happened to be one of many that took place this past February in relation to Black History Month.

Dr. Jennifer Ryan-Bryant, who is also a member of the BSU President’s Council for Equity and Diversity, joined the Anti-Racist Initiatives Subcommittee of the President’s Council in 2021. She says they’ve been working on a mobile workshop for anti-racist practices and pedagogy.

“So far, we’ve visited two departments and three programs on campus to deliver the workshop,” she said. “We’re continuing to change and improve the workshop every month in response to their feedback and our own conversations. It’s been really important to learn about what students, faculty, and staff think about how they are represented and seen on this campus.”

The workshop described by Bryant is just one of the ways that BSU has gone about making sure that the staff and faculty are knowledgeable when it comes to the equity and diversity that they want to promote through the events they host.

“Buffalo State has a steadfast commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and in promoting justice for all,” said Haumesser. “Campus departments and student organizations host many events each year embracing the diversity of our community as well as bringing greater awareness to long-standing and emerging social injustices.”

Many students at BSU know of the countless number of events that take place throughout the year, but it is just as important to know how many of them are there to continue bringing forth equity and diversity to students.