The Signal recently interviewed Vivian Bui (senior, Ethnic Studies and Criminal Justice), an ASI Candidates for Director of Diversity.

The duty of the Director of Diversity is to serve as the main advocate for student’s diversity rights.

Introducing the Candidate

Vivian Bui is a transfer student from Southern California. She expressed her identity as “a queer, first-generation student of color.”

One of the reasons for Bui running was the lack of representation at Stan State. Drawing from her own uncomfortable experience of coming to the school and feeling that there wasn’t a representation of herself. Bui said, “I realized that if no one is going to represent me than I am going to have to represent myself and I want to push that for others.”

Another reason for Bui running is to create a more welcoming environment for students. Bui said, “I feel that students just come here, get their education, and leave. We need to break that barrier. We want students to stay here longer. To feel that this is their home.”

Addressing White Supremacy

Bui has taken an active role in the Transformation Tuesday rallies that have been occurring on campus in response to the recent presence of white supremacists at Stan State. Since coming to Stan State, she has participated in activism on campus.

Bui described President’s Junn’s first email that responded to the activities of white supremacists group as “very vague.” She said that President Junn “didn’t say anything about white supremacy or hate speech or anything.”

Bui also inferred a connection between the flyers that were placed on campus by the White Supremacy group and the timing of them. She brought up that these flyers were put up during Black History Month in February and that one of the flyers were placed at the theater in which one of the black history events organized by the Ethnic Studies department was being held at.

As a response to these actions, a letter of recommendation was created by Bui, her friends, and groups, like M.E.C.H.A and Indigenous Students in Activism and presented to President Junn in order to encourage her to denounce white supremacy. Bui saw this as an opportunity to “hold President Junn Accountable.”

Pushing Diversity

In terms of working with the Stan State’s message and vision for diversity, Bui points to her experience with being in meetings with the PCDI (President’s Commission on Diversity & Inclusion). She brings up the fact that during these meetings she was in the same room as President Junn.

Bui expressed confidence in her ability to be able to speak up to President Junn and said “I am comfortable enough to tell her [President Junn] that this is how the students feel and I can advocate for it because at the end of the day, I am the liaison between the students and the admin and I want to make sure the students’ voices are being heard.”

She adds that the way in which she would execute the duties of her position would be in line with the university’s message and vision for diversity because of its “social-justice focused.”

Marginalized Communities

One of Bui’s main ideas to represent the marginalized communities on campus is by creating a climate report in order to identify areas of improvement on campus, like ensuring resources to specific marginalized communities. Bui said, “[Marginalized communities] They’re not getting heard at all. Students are feeling unsafe and how do we know this? There’s no climate report or anything.”

Bui emphasizes the importance of talking to students in order to ensure the school is helping the marginalized communities on campus. She stressed that without talking to the students, there is no way to know if the school is meeting the needs of the marginalized communities unless “we don’t go out there and talk to them.”

Bui added the importance of taking an active role in listening to the thoughts and feelings of these communities and said: “We don’t want them to come to us, we have to go to them.”

To see learn more about Vivian Bui and her stances on topics, be sure to listen to the interview with her on KCSS. Bui is also available on Instagram, @vitbui.

Make sure you go to vote on either April 17th or 18th from 8am-6pm in South Dining.