Wearing a blue T-shirt that read, “I am Iowa State,” Vernon Wall, assistant dean of students ended this year’s Third Annual Multicultural Leadership Summit by announcing to participants, “You’ve made a commitment, and you’ve got work to do. Please be the change you wish to see in the world.”

More than 100 ISU students and faculty members gathered Friday evening and all day Saturday at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and Student Center, 2210 Lincoln Way, to share their commitment to increase awareness about diversity issues on campus.

Wall said all available openings for the conference were filled a month before the application deadline, providing proof of the increasing interest in multicultural issues on campus.

This year’s theme, “Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution,” came from a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which states, “No one can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels they can live alone is sleeping through the revolution.”

Rebecca Gutierrez Keeton, guest facilitator and keynote speaker, said Saturday’s portion of the summit was split between discussing participants’ own multiple identities and focusing on action-planning and setting goals, both personal and institutional, to improve the environment for multicultural acceptance at Iowa State.

“I think if you start doing action-planning first, it’s not connected to who you are as a person. Then when things get tough, it’s easier to give up because you forget how much you personally have invested,” said Keeton, director of the Office of Student Life and Cultural Centers at California Polytechnic University.

Todd Herriott, small group facilitator for the summit and program coordinator for the Dean of Students office, said the purpose of the summit was “first and foremost, a chance to meet other people and make connections, to find the commonalities and goals.”

Herriott said the event was a chance to re-energize and return to his commitment to multicultural awareness with renewed energy.

Several participants said the summit was an opportunity to meet other ISU students and faculty with the same interest in diversity issues. The summit provided an opportunity for networking as well as a place for self-exploration.

Yanira Pacheco, graduate student in journalism and mass communication, said she attended the summit to learn strategies for incorporating multicultural issues into her curriculum.

At the end of the event, participants read aloud the institutional goals they developed in their small groups. These goals included increased recruitment and retention of minority faculty, staff and students at Iowa State, as well as implementing a mentor program for minority students. Another group announced their plan to submit a proposal to President Gregory Geoffroy’s diversity committee.

Herriott said he’d like to have a multicultural center on campus. The center would unite all groups under one roof to increase the strength and ability for these organizations to institute change on campus, he said. Herriott said cooperation from other multicultural groups could make the multicultural center a reality within three to five years.

There will be a follow-up session to the summit on March 7 at the Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity.

Summit participants will have the opportunity to discuss the progress they’ve made in achieving the institutional and personal goals they set during Saturday’s summit.