By SLO City Council Member, John Ashbaugh

Published in SLO Journal Plus, April 2011 (download PDF)

ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, I WAS HONORED TO BE invited to participate ill tile Diversity Colloquium at the Performing Arts Center at California Polytechnic State University. This event gathered energetic and enthusiastic faculty. students, and community members under the banner, “Celebrating Diversity.”

Our purpose for this Colloquium was expressed in the words of a City Proclamation delivered by Mayor Jan Marx to Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong: “to affirm the 0n- and off-campus virtues of living and learning in a diverse culture.” It was significant that Cal Poly reached out to the larger community, with the City represented by Mayor Marx and myself. Within the audience of about SOD in the Cohan Center auditorium were a kaleidoscope of ethnicities. Participants included representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and many other local non-profit organizations. (more…)