Students at the University of Washington Bothell campus staged a walk-out from classes to protest the lack of a diversity center on campus on Feb. 25.

While the protest was held in conjunction with the Black Lives Matter protests occurring at the UW Seattle and UW Tacoma campuses, the UW Bothell campus students were protesting for the creation of a place where students can come together to overcome and learn about diversity issues, while also feeling included in the campus community.

“Our plan here is that we want a diversity center and it’s not just about color,” said Melanie McManus, senior at the UW Bothell Campus, about how the protest for a diversity center came from a class project. “One of the things that came out and stuck out to me was that people though ‘well it’s going to exclude white people’ and we just told them it’s not about just white people.”

The idea of a diversity center is not merely for those of minority descent, but is a place where people of all colors and cultural backgrounds can come together as a community for the greater good of the community.

According to McManus, the person who first suggested a diversity center was a white male veteran from the same class.

Dave Hudson, a teacher of a veterans’ transition class and student veteran at the UW Bothell Campus wants to bring his military experience with diversity extend to the civilian world, too.

To Hudson, diversity is “each culture, ethnic background, each community bonding together first on campus, and then we break out as a whole and make it all diverse, within the communities and outside as a bigger picture.”

“To me, the only way we can truly say we are diverse is that, I don’t care about what you see with color of skin around campus; that’s not diversity to me, it’s a socialism of the different communities getting together,” Hudson said.

“…That’s what we hope the diversity center will do,” McManus said. “It will give me a space and a place to go to with other people who go through the same things that I’m going through.”

That same sentiment was given by many speakers at the protest on Wednesday, not only do students want a space that they can call their own, but also a space to learn and commune with other students about the difficulties of university life on a diverse campus. While there is collaboration within the classroom, there is not a place where that collaboration of diverse minds can connect outside the classroom.

“They’re doing a great job inside the classroom but not outside the classroom,” Hudson said. “We need a place where people can be saved, that’s the way I see it: ‘safe spaces.’

For Hudson, knowing that spaces are available, not just for veterans but any person feeling the need to be heard and accepted, can save lives.

“Speaking for veterans, you can save lives,” Hudson said. “These different spaces can save lives for every community involved that to talk to somebody that they can relate to help them with anything they go through at the university.”

Dr. Terryl Ross, director of diversity at UW Bothell, was on hand to answer forum-style questions from the student body and to show solidarity in the desire to create a space for students to learn about diversity and the skills needed to work within a diverse world.

“Ultimately, we want more than a physical space, we want something that defines our campus,” Ross said. “We want it to help students leave here with diversity skills.”

Ross only started at the UW Bothell campus as the director of diversity seven months ago, so when students complained that they had heard the same thing before, he mentioned, “Not from me.”

Ross is dedicated to creating a space, whether in a temporary or permanent location, for students to gather, though it will come after figuring out where to educate all the incoming students.

“The biggest challenge is campus is growing faster than we can accommodate,” Ross said. “The number one priority is instruction, labs, etc.”

While the biggest priority is the learning spaces, there are plans for new dorms and more buildings to accommodate the influx of students. However, the funding takes a while to get from the state, around seven years, too long to wait for a new diversity center.

Ross believes the best option to fund a diversity center space won’t be through state funding, but through student fees, as the state funding takes around seven years to go from application for funding to completion of project.

That doesn’t give students an immediate space to gather. As many speakers noted, university life is tough whether you are a white female lesbian, a Samoan student or another student with issues to speak about.

However, the protests were the start of a conversation between the students and the school administration.

“It felt awesome, I’m so proud of them,” said Ross of being part the forum experience.

For a slideshow from the event, please visit the Bothell-Kenmore Reporter’s article here, at http://www.bothell-reporter.com/news/294260931.html .