Student

The following feature story appeared in the campus publication Mosaic in December, 2000.

A vow to make a difference

As part of an internship with a Hartford film company, Fatou-Maty Diouf helped create an anti-smoking advertisement aimed at kids. On location at the Learning Corridor educational complex adjacent to Trinity’s campus, Diouf helped film the actors, who were children from the Learning Corridor’s schools. Back at the company’s Broad Street offices, Diouf also participated in editing the film, in particular adding graphic elements, which gave the computer science major and self-described “computer nerd” a chance to work with software that is not available on campus.

For Diouf, who is interested in a possible career in computer graphics, the project was doubly rewarding: it was excellent practical experience, and it was designed to address a societal problem. Diouf hopes to forge a career that not only uses her artistic and computer skills but also helps people, perhaps creating software that aids the disabled, or devising ways to bridge the “digital gap” between the technologies accessible to First- and Third-World nations. She says, “I’d be very unsatisfied with myself if I just did something for me.”

Helping others
Diouf came to Trinity on a personal mission that was inspired by her years at a Florida boarding school. After reflecting on her experiences there, Diouf decided that she’d been a passive “complainer,” who didn’t do enough to make her community a better place. At Trinity, she vowed, she would be the kind of person who made a difference. Last year, she became a resident assistant (R.A.) in a residence hall for first-year students. As an R.A., Diouf sought to support her charges through the transition to college life. She says, “As an older student I know the system. Even if I don’t have all the answers, I know whom to go to.” But Diouf is most proud of her efforts to improve the college experiences for gay, lesbian, and bisexual students. In her second semester at Trinity, Diouf became the president of Encouraging Respect of Sexualities (EROS), a student organization that raises awareness about issues of sexual orientation and discrimination and offers support to students who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual. During her tenure, EROS has drawn attention to sexual orientation as a less-visible but nevertheless important element of Trinity’s overall commitment to diversity, tolerance, and inclusion. Over the past two years, Diouf has worked to increase the group’s membership, especially by encouraging students who are heterosexual to join the organization as a way of honoring friends or family members who are not, or as a way to demonstrate their support for a climate on campus in which diversity is accepted and celebrated.

Diouf’s most significant accomplishment as the EROS president may be the establishment, for the first time ever, of a home base for the group. Its quarters are currently located on Crescent Street, where the Latino student group La Voz Latina used to be housed. With much recent on-campus construction and renovation of cultural houses for a number of student groups, Diouf is working to ensure that there will eventually be a permanent place among them for EROS.

Laura R. Lockwood, director of the Women’s Center, has worked with Diouf in sensitivity training sessions for faculty and staff and on collaborative projects of the Women’s Center and EROS. She calls the creation of a home for EROS “a huge step forward,” but she notes that Diouf’s biggest contribution to gay, lesbian, and bisexual students at Trinity may be her “visibility on campus” as a person to turn to for information and support. Diouf, who publicly acknowledged her bisexuality during her first-year seminar, often receives anonymous e-mails and telephone calls from students. Some are trying to come to terms with their sexual orientations in a place where they are clearly in the minority. Others just want to talk with someone they know will understand. When Diouf came to Trinity, she didn’t know whom to turn to. Now, she vows, “I will never let another freshman feel as alone as I did.”

Associate Professor of Psychology Dina L. Anselmi, who was Diouf’s adviser last year, says that Diouf brings that same courage to the classroom. Anselmi taught her in a course on the “Psychology of Gender,” which, notes Anselmi, covers material that tends to be difficult for people to talk about. Not for Diouf. Says Anselmi, “From day one, she was always willing not only to state her views but also to really engage in an intellectual dialogue about tough issues relating to gender. I really admire that willingness to put herself on the line intellectually.” Diouf, who has taken many psychology courses and was for a time a double major in computer science and psychology, values her educational background in the social sciences. “Whatever you do, you deal with people,” Diouf observes. “It helps to know how they think and how you think.”

Adept at adapting
Born in France to parents who are of French and Senegalese descent, Diouf grew up in the small South American country of French Guiana and came to the United States when she was 13. She still has family in Senegal, and her mother, who works for the United Nations, now lives in Peru, which is where Diouf goes during her vacations from Trinity. Diouf speaks not only French and English, but also Spanish and some Creole dialects, all of which will be an advantage when she spends her spring semester at Trinity’s global learning site in Trinidad. Adapting to so many cultural environments has, she believes, made her an open-minded person. “Everything is cultural,” she observes. “We hold things to be absolutely true. We think that’s the way things are. But if you go to another place, things are different.” Diouf cherishes her own cultural heritage. At her high school graduation, she was required to wear a white dress. She chose a traditional Senegalese garment in white. She says, “It’s really important to acknowledge who you are and where you come from.”

– Leslie Virostek