“I am helping the cultures on campus be heard.”

“I am helping the cultures on campus be heard.”

After the academic credentials, work experience, co-curricular activities, honors, and community service, there are three sentences on Diamond Gilliam’s resume, – just 63 words – that sum up who she is and why she stands before us today to receive the Aspire! Award for embracing Ut Prosim as a way of life.

Diamond’s resume says, “After facing racial slurs and mistreatments on campus as an African American Woman, I have placed myself outside of my comfort zone to help increase the inclusion and diversity presented on campus. I have reached out to the President of Virginia Tech and he has become my ally for my fight for equality on campus. I am helping the cultures on campus be heard.”

This is how it came about. Diamond’s first year at Virginia Tech was rough. She was called the N-word. While attending a Black Student Union address, she noticed that the university president, Tim Sands, wasn’t there, and she thought that was disturbing. Diamond said, “I thought he should be able to come into the black community and hear what we go through. So I sent him an email, he read it and emailed me back within two days and then I had a meeting with him to voice my concerns. So that’s how found my place and my voice. I found my place on my own within the black community, just seeing my personal problems and finding that other people can open up to me.”

Her nominator wrote, “Diamond is an excellent example of Ut Prosim. She serves the Black Cultural Center and encourages the black community to express themselves. Diamond stands as a role model for the community.”

Diamond is a first-generation college student, majoring in History with double minors in International Studies and Spanish. She is the recipient of several scholarships and she is a CommonWEALTH Scholar. She plans to graduate early and go directly to law school to study law that deals with discrimination, race, and racial tension.

She is now in the process of planning a Privilege Walk to show the disconnect on campus between the minorities and majorities. She says the event will include a unity talk to discuss what we can do to change this, what we can do to make everyone feel comfortable at Virginia Tech.

Diamond says the highlight of her time at Virginia Tech has been tutoring a four-year-old boy from Afghanistan through the Blacksburg Refugee Partnership. She spent last summer with the Virginia Tech Black College Institute, where she worked with African American high school students, to educate them about all the opportunities that are presented to them in college.

Diamond’s advice to others is: “Always pay it forward. You’re putting out good energy into the universe, good karma, and it will come back. No matter what you do, even if you’re paying it forward for a reason, don’t expect anything in return. Just be a good person.”