Diversity Works Expo Highlights Student Voices

News

Feb 16

Five students and five registered student organizations received $10,000 to do everything from supporting Black engineering students to creating a more inclusive queer community at the 7th Annual Diversity Works Expo & Awards (DWE) held on Feb. 13. The funding will also help groups to share Mexican culture and history in dance performances, foster a network of women in finance and create a home away from home for all South Asian students.

Hosted by the Santa Clara Career Center, the event celebrated diversity in the workplace, giving students the opportunity to network with various diversity, equity and inclusion partners across different companies.

We spoke to representatives from each winning student group about their presence on campus and their plans for using the awards.

BALLET FOLKLÓRICO:

“Ballet Folklórico is a performing arts club on campus dedicated to sharing the history and culture of Mexico through dance. Our work, not only on campus but also in the community, has helped to diversify campus and make the Latino students feel welcome. We collaborate with a lot of other culture club events, like the drag show and Queer Quince. We try to do one performance off-campus every quarter; last quarter, we performed at an elementary school. We’re planning to use the scholarship money to buy new costumes for our first-ever culture show coming up on May 5.”

Bella Estrada, ‘25, accounting, Ballet Folklórico Co-Chair

INTANDESH:

“Intandesh is our South Asian student association on campus. We host events for all undergraduate students that are mainly targeted towards South Asians. We have weekly meetings but also larger celebrations for cultural events. We try to create a home away from home for students who don’t live super close, but even if they do live close, to have a community on campus. We like to reach out to a lot of different organizations on campus to collaborate, and we try to create fun events with a great number of turnout of South Asian and non-South Asian students. With the money that we’re getting, we want to host more culturally diverse events–South Asia is huge, with so many different cultures, and we want to celebrate each and every one of our members.”

Esha Grewal, ‘24, public health, management information systems minor, Intandesh Co-Chair

NATIONAL SOCIETY OF BLACK ENGINEERS (NSBE):

“The National Society of Black Engineers promotes academic excellence, hosts a lot of career path networking events, and gives a space to gather as a community. Engineering is hard and it’s great to have a group of like-minded people. We’ve done a lot of work with companies and campus events. One of our biggest pushes was for having as many career-prepped graduates as possible. We also work with local organizations, gathering kids and teaching them about what it means to be an engineer, as well as within the Black community, to tell them that STEM majors do exist. With the scholarship money, we’re going to take more individuals to our national convention as well as facilitate a lot of outreach programs.”

Kimaya Davis, ‘25, computer science, NSBE Finance Chair

QUEER PEOPLE OF COLOR ASSOCIATION (QPOCA):

“QPOCA holds events that are geared towards the broader queer community at Santa Clara. There’s been a lack of representation in terms of how many student organizations serve the needs of queer people, and now, post-COVID, new ones are popping up. We’re seeing this massive demand for queer-oriented events, and one of the events we had recently was Queer Quince, which was a collaboration between us, the Latiné Student Union and Hermanas Unidas. It was a Quince celebration for people who didn’t have one, whether due to financial reasons, gender identity or not feeling represented. Last quarter, we had an event for the very first time called “QPOCALYPSE” which was a maker market and resource fair geared towards queer people of color. With the money we are getting, we plan on hosting more big events in the future.”

Maya Vasudev, ‘26, psychology, graphic design minor, QPOCA Secretary

WOMEN IN INVESTMENT (WII):

“WII has four main pillars: community, career development, education and philanthropy. We have a variety of events throughout the year from employers coming in to information sessions, and we have our big annual dinner in the spring of every year. What WII is trying to do is to promote the idea of diversity and that women are great investors. The finance industry is very underrepresented in terms of women, so we try to bring more women into the space and be founders of society. We go to high schools every single year to educate women very early on about what a career in finance is. The money we are getting will go to the 2024 annual dinner. We’re planning on having over 260 people, including alumni, faculty staff and parents.”