On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, Auburn University held a diversity research conference to highlight six researchers at Auburn who received Distinguished Diversity Researcher awards. The conference also featured two award-winning speakers who lectured on diversity issues.

Students from Auburn helped with the registration process and giving out the awards at the dinner Wednesday night. James Wilson, a junior in public relations and President of the Black Student Union, was at the conference as a representative of the University.

“Diversity to me means, I look at it as a good thing, definitely,” Wilson said. “That’s one reason why I chose to go to Auburn because I feel like it is a diverse university.”

Auburn University faculty members attended the two-day conference held at the Auburn University Hotel and Conference Center. Robin Taylor, a diversity analyst in the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, entered the conference with familiarity of diversity issues.

“I collect a lot of data for the office and assess many of our programs to see how the programs are effective in recruiting and retaining minority students and also faculty and staff initiatives,” Taylor said. “I see diversity as an important function of moving forward in society, of working together.”

Both Wilson and Taylor had high hopes for the conference. They were looking forward to learning more about diversity and the research that is taking place at Auburn and around the country.

“Actually, just to gain a little more knowledge about diversity because you hear just the typical everyday black and white, but just to know that diversity goes further than just black and white,” Wilson said when asked about gaining from the conference. “And it goes with Asian, Hispanic, just to learn more stuff about that.”

“Really, just understanding what others are doing in respect to diversity, what issues are still out there, things that I’m not aware of,” Taylor said. “I’m a number-cruncher, so I stick back in my office a lot, and so just really learning all other efforts that are on-going, things that are important, and how they are being addressed.”