Nearly 100 students and faculty members spent part of the weekend working to promote diversity and raise awareness of multicultural issues on campus.

Saturday marked Iowa State’s fifth annual Multicultural Leadership Summit.

“The event’s objective is to bring students together to learn about who they are and what they bring to the Iowa State campus,” said Annice Fisher, leadership graduate assistant.

Penny Rice, keynote speaker at the summit, delivered a lecture about her personal experiences growing up.

This was used as part of a group exercise about identifying different forms of prejudice and other issues in everyday life.

Rice, coordinator of the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center, told the attendees that student involvement and participation were the most important aspects of the summit.

Rice also defined and outlined her aversion to a variety of daily injustices

These included anti-Semitism, sexism and racism. Near the end of the discussion, she voiced her opinion on heterosexism, calling society’s assumptions of heterosexual-oriented relationships “unfair” and “hurtful.”

She gave the example of a recent Hallmark product: two stuffed animal bears that “kiss” when brought together by magnets in their noses.

“This assumption and message is hurtful … Why do they need to be boy and girl bears? Why can’t they sell two girl bears that kiss?” she said.

She ended her speech by asking her audience for its help in bringing about change.

“We can’t bring about change on Iowa State’s campus without you acting as campus climate ambassadors,” Rice said.

Those who participated in this year’s summit should become campus leaders in multicultural issues and make Iowa State more diverse and aware of specific problems, said Brant Kassel, sophomore in philosophy and a summit coordinator.

“These are definitely issues that need to be addressed,” said Charles Varland, graduate student in educational leadership and policy studies and one of the summit’s program facilitators. “From this summit, a coalition of students concerned with multicultural issues can go into campus and the rest of the world … and bring about change, whether it’s speaking out against an inappropriate comment or starting up a student organization.”

Although the summit is one way to promote diversity on campus, Natalie Lawrence, freshman in pre-advertising, said more can still be done.

“There is a need for more multicultural student events on campus, to keep the community of color on campus out of the shadows,” she said.