Southeast Missouri State University is continuously looking for ways to promote diversity on campus. The university's task force wanted something meaningful and more effective than things might have been in the past. One of the most recent efforts was the "Ask a Caucasian," "Veteran," "African American," "LGBT," "Christian" and "Muslim" booths that were set up from Wednesday, Oct. 28, through Thursday, Nov. 5, outside of the University Center. These booths were set up in hopes that students, faculty or staff members would talk to the representative at the booth and ask questions they probably wouldn't ask on a daily basis and to try to help people understand things outside of their culture or what they may not be used to.

"We want to promote conversations on campus, we want people to talk about these things," digital image specialist Aaron Eisenhauer said. "Because the more you talk about these things the less ignorance there is, the more understanding, and the less prejudice there is. Whenever understanding goes up, prejudice goes down, I think."

Eisenhauer and assistant director of marketing and digital media Tonya Wells came up with the initial concept of the booths and were just a couple of what turned out to be many people who helped make this event possible. They came up with the idea based off a weekly radio program called "This American Life." The program did a series called "Talk to an Iraqi" where they also had a booth set up. With Southeast in mind, Eisenhauer and Wells wanted to put a spin on it to help promote diversity on campus, so instead of just one booth, they decided to have six.

After discussing the ideas for the booths, Eisenhauer and Wells talked with Dr. Debbie Below, the vice president for enrollment management and student success and dean of students at the university. She directed them to the President's Task Force on Diversity, where they attended a meeting about potential ideas for the booths. They wanted to have a pretty broad representation of topics, but realized they couldn't have them too broad.

"All the ideas we tossed around were based around having real conversations," Eisenhauer said. "We didn't want to shy away from difficult topics, but we didn't want it to be a fluff piece, and I think a lot of things have come to light."

After figuring out the topics for the booths, they had to find students to participate. They wanted students who were well spoken, could represent themselves well and were comfortable sharing their experience.

"We wanted everyone to understand that they were sharing their experience and not representing the group as a whole," Eisenhauer said.

They went to various organizations on campus looking for representatives and found who they felt would be perfect candidates for the booths.

Sophomore Jonathan Chai participated in Ask a Veteran day. Chai served seven years in the Army. He was deployedboth in Iraq and Afghanistan for one year each.

"I agreed to do it since I believed it would help publicize the veteran and military presence at SEMO," Chai said. "Also, there wasn't any reason not to, and it might help people understand the specific group of veterans more."

Some, but not all, of the participants who took questions at the booths were senior Wesley Cox, who answered questions on Ask an African American day; junior Eric Mahnken, who answered questions on Ask an LGBT day; sophomore Chai, who answered questions on Ask a Veteran day; Senior Tyler Sayer, who answered questions on Ask a Caucasian day; senior Haley Henson, who answered questions on Ask a Christian day; and Amer Bualhasan, who answered questions on Ask a Muslim day.

There were a variety of topics that came up in discussions at the booths, including white privilege on Ask a Caucasian day. The Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, opinions on Caitlyn Jenner and being gay at Southeast were a few topics that came up on Ask a LGBT day.

Why African Americans get upset when people say, "all lives matter instead of black lives matter," what exactly the black lives matter movement is, where the stereotype that African Americans like chicken and watermelon came from, the evolution and use of the N-word, how people feel about the use of the derogatory term and what are the boundaries of using it were some topics discussed on Ask an African American Day.

Questions on Ask a Muslim day included how Bualhasan feels the media is portraying the Islamic community, and questions about veteran PTSD, being deployed and whether Chai was ever shot or had killed someone and his time in the military on Ask a Veteran day. Lastly, how Christians feel about LGBT people and if Christianity is the right answer were a couple asked on Ask a Christian day.

"I think it's a good way to have the hard conversations that aren't usually had because people usually feel uncomfortable or it's not like an open forum where they feel welcome to talk," Cox said. "I thought it was a great idea."

All of these conversations were recorded and will be played at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Dinner in January.