"You make the difference" - so do I?
A personal report on the theme week "You make the difference! Together we shape diversity" at the University of Cologne from 8 - 11.06.2015. By Andreas Klein
No matter where I walk in the university: Everywhere I look, I see the poster on which the words "YOU MAKE THE DIVERSITY - Together we create diversity" shine in bright colours and draw my attention to the theme week of the University of Cologne from 8th to 11th June.
Does every single person really make a difference?
I can't help but wonder: Does each individual really make the difference? And what does that mean? Just because I behave differently than perhaps my fellow student, do I make the difference? At the same time, it is perhaps also about the many differences that we all create in our own minds: Men and women, Germans and foreigners, disabled and non-disabled. Are precisely these distinctions, if not stereotyping, not also part of the problem?
As a student in the second semester, I therefore decide to get involved in the theme week and its offers. At a university with around 49,000 students, of which a good 5,000 are foreign nationals, and a university that has four international offices around the world and 20 official university partnerships around the globe, diversity must be everywhere.
What was on offer at the themed week all about diversity?
And this is exactly how this exciting week on campus turns out for me. As diverse as the University of Cologne is, as diverse are the offers after leafing through the detailed program booklet. Diversity, I quickly realize when I plan my week, not only has something to do with different origins and the gender issue, no, it is rather a mixture of all the characteristics that a person carries with them.
Whether it's about studying in old age, or how to get from A to B safely across the campus as a wheelchair user*, whether it's about how to master studies with a child, parental leave and the like, or what constitutes a sensitive approach to cultural differences, the first day of the theme week starts right away with interesting seminars, guided tours and lectures. So I sit in the barrier-free PC workrooms, get to know computer programs that can be used to dictate entire homework assignments, discuss current global trends with people from AIESEC a little later and then flex my arm muscles by moving around the main building in a wheelchair. The next few days I will take part in a seminar on how to deal with racism in schools, attend the lecture series "Wissen.schaf(f)tGender" and in the evening I will laugh heartily with about 300 other students about the incredibly good French comedy "Monsieur Claude and his daughters", which brings the subject of racism across with a lot of humour.
A complete success: Celebrity guests at the talk show on the 3rd Diversity Day at the University of Cologne and what is this shrill couple doing on the Albertus Magnus Platz?
On the 3rd German Diversity Day on 09.06.2015, things will literally take off on Albertus Magnus Platz. Early in the morning I turn off my bike and have not even turned the key in the lock, two people are already approaching me. She in a pink smock and yellow hair band, he in a grey smock and a tin bucket in his hand. Both are good in their sixties. Both are loud. They both come at me wildly gesticulating. They both talk in disarray about tonight's talk, a pink stamp and free postcards that have already been stamped. The two are two actors from the improvisation theatre Caracho. Irmgard and Kurt are a shrill caretaker couple and have a firm grip on the students rushing about the square. With their open and very humorous manner, they set themselves apart from all the other doctoral students who are on campus today. They even put a pink "You make the difference" stamp on the arms of rather uninterested students, thus appointing everyone the same ambassador of diversity. While Irmgard from her 70s Tupperdose distributes the stamped postcards with messages on diversity and equal opportunities, Kurt fishes invitations for the evening's discussion round from his tin bucket and informs about guests and topics. The stand of the Department for Gender and Quality Management of the University of Cologne in the middle of Albertus Magnus Platz, which is equipped with all kinds of information material on diversity and the theme week, is also well attended and accepted. Questions are clarified, interest is aroused, prejudices are eliminated. People laugh together, nod, agree with each other or have lively discussions about different views. They also take postcards, ballpoint pens, badges and peppermint jars with them and are thus reminded of this day even in weeks to come. In the evening I go to the project exchange in the lecture hall building, get presented some projects around diversity, before I look for a good place in the lecture hall building to listen to the talk show. The title sounds promising: "We make the difference in dealing with diversity in Germany". Marius Jung, cabaret artist from Cologne, starts off with a little five minute solo and then has the whole audience* on his side. For the next 90 minutes, the discussion round will be moderated by Giesela Steinhauer. She introduced her guests Vera Thamm (Paralympics participant 2012), Tina Adomako (Neue Deutsche Medienmacher e.V.), Prof.'. Dr.' Argyro Panagiotopoulou (a scientist at the University of Cologne) and Marius Jung are in perfect control and lead through the evening with interesting questions. Thus, the round table is very interactive and the mixture of guests leads to topics for discussion about dealing with racism, physical disabilities and diversity in general. When Giesela Steinhauer then calls for the final round and each of the guests makes a short statement towards the end, the audience in the lecture hall is thrilled and each of them is enriched by a few more diverse views.
Do I make a difference or not?
So as I cycle home later, I think about the week and the question of how I can make a difference now. The very fact that I am dealing with the topic of diversity and all the impressions of the last days let me know that I am making a difference. When I drove across the campus in my wheelchair and a little later received a whatsapp from a friend, how purposefully and confidently I had moved through the masses of students in it and that he too would now be paying attention to the topic of diversity with more open eyes, I knew for myself that the difference was in oneself and that bringing this knowledge to the outside world would make the difference.
Because in the end, Kurt and Irmgard were right on the 3rd International Diverity Day with what they called out to me and all the others on the Albertus Magnus Square: YOU MAKE THE DIFFERENCE!