Oct. 22, 2014

By Ryan Marshick

In response to the recent hate crimes that occurred on campus, the three governing Councils for Greek Life organized the WhoIAm event, where photos were taken of a large group of students and faculty to show unity and support against violence and discrimination on campus.

The purpose of these Greek Life Councils is to help lead the fraternities and sororities on campus to work toward a common goal.

“The three councils met and decided that it was our role to strike out discrimination,” Vice President of the Panhellenic Council senior Danielle Johnson said.

The Career and Leadership Development department, along with other student organizations on campus, helped to run and participate in this event.

“Everybody was invited to join, and a lot of non-Greeks attended, which is great,” Johnson said.
Hundreds of students and faculty members joined together at 12:20 p.m. on Oct. 15 in the Hamilton Room to be a part of this event.

“The purpose of this event is to show that we support all students, staff and faculty on campus in being who they are inside and out,” Johnson said.

The event consisted of taking two different group photos. The first picture that was taken showed everybody divided into different groups based on the color of their shirt, making a rainbow.

In the second photo, all of the participants were mixed together.

“Through these pictures, we are celebrating both our similarities and our differences,” Johnson said.  “The second picture is to show how well people can fit together, even if they have differences.”

After the two group photos were taken, participants were encouraged to find people they did not know and take selfies with them to post on social media, including the hashtag #WHOiAM.

“This is a way to celebrate one another and put into action who and what being a Warhawk means,” senior Sarah Schwind, who helped run the event, said.

“We are supporting UW-Whitewater and Whitewater, itself, in being a safe and inclusive place to live, learn and work,” Schwind said.

The pictures from this event, which were taken by University Photographer Craig Schreiner, were posted on the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Facebook page and shared by various other UW-Whitewater student organizations.