Lee Mun Wah, filmmaker and diversity trainer, will grace USI with his presence to speak about diversity Thursday.
His newest film, “If These Walls Could Talk,” is about a group of very diverse college-aged students and what their experiences are on college campuses, Counseling Director Tom Longwell said.
Longwell became interested when he was in graduate school when he saw one of Lee’s popular films, “The Color of Fear.”
“Sometimes you get speakers to come in and they do a nice (presentation) – few hours – time goes by and you forget what they say,” Longwell said. “The reason I like Lee is because (his presentation is) very impactful to me. I learned a lot, not only about myself, but (about) the privilege I have had as an individual.”Longwell said the film will follow with discussions about what is going on with our campus with diversity, its challenges and its difficulties.
“The whole topic of the day is about diversity conversations,” Longwell said. “It’s not just about coming together and hearing a talk. It’s about starting a process at the university. That way we can know how to keep having these conversations again and again, because it’s an ongoing process, an ongoing journey.”
Longwell said he thinks hearing stories from other students will touch USI students deeper than hearing statistics thrown at them.
“It’s one thing to have this goal of diversity where we go ‘oh yeah, this is a good thing,’” Longwell said. “But it’s another thing to be touched by someone else’s story. I think it touches you at a deeper level.”
Longwell said he doesn’t think there are problems with USI students and diversity, but there have been incidents.
“We are always trying to have a greater diversity in students, faculty and staff,” Longwell said. “I would say there are always challenges. I have got things to learn and things to change, things to improve on to understand more. I only have my experiences. I still have a journey, too. We try and pretend everything is hunky-dory. The temptation now is that we have an African-American president, (so we think) everything is wonderful in term of race and ethnicity and how we all get along. That’s probably not the case. These conversations are important.”
Lee will lead discussion with “How to Have a Dialogue Across Cultures” at 2 p.m. in UC East room 2217 and 2218. He will present his movie “If These Walls Could Talk” at 6:30 p.m. in UC room 2217 and 2218. All events are free.