Preston Larson

I helped create the #DiversityIsOurStrength project, working as the Accessibility & User Experience (co-Lead), Educational Workshops, Social Media Team and Development team.

My Family History

My mom's side of the family is Bohemian. Their name was Bohach, and they moved to America to seek a new and better life with more opportunities in Silver Lake, MN in 1890. The Bohach family first settled in Appleton, Minnesota, until my Grandpa moved to Iowa. My dad’s side of the family is mainly Danish. The Larsons moved to Iowa because my ancestors were offered a place to live if they wanted to farm a certain amount of acres. They settled outside of Crystal Lake and found work as nurses, railroad workers, and farmers.

Living in Iowa

I grew up in Sheffield, Iowa which is a small town. For fun I love to fish and hunt, and I enjoy the outdoors. I think what makes me Iowan is holding the values of working hard and “nothing comes easy, you must earn what you want.”

My Dreams

I am good with technology and have learned skills that I am pretty decent at, such as coding and social media marketing. My ideal job would be a social media brand manager so I can make digital content that people enjoy.

A Teacher Who Changed My Life

Mike Dirksen, Business Instructor in Informational Technology, North Iowa Area Community College. During my second year at NIACC, Mike Dirksen asked our class “What do you want to do with your life?” and I had no idea. Then he said, “It's okay, I had no idea what I was going to do at your age too.” Then I asked him how he got into the IT world and said, “I took an IT class and decided that's what I wanted to do.” It was important for me to know I could just stumble into a class and decide what I was going to do. I walked into UNI, watched a 2 minute video about Interactive Digital Studies, and said “that's what I want to do.”

My Favorite Thing

A deer that was harvested and turned into a shoulder mount.

Deer are everywhere in Iowa, being a hunter, I see firsthand how deer behave, live, and change every year. To me, deer stand for toughness, perseverance, and adaptation, and they represent us as a state and as people. When I see a whitetail, I think of Iowa.

What #DIVERSITYISOURSTRENGTH means to me

DiveristyIsOurStrength means that everyone has untapped potential and opportunities, if we can have a society where working together is the main goal we can live in a better world for everyone. The legacy of slavery continues to oppress our black and brown community members, individually and as a whole. DiversityIsOurStrength gives us a reason to tear down the walls, boundaries, and obstacles that stand in our way as humans.

Alex Knospe Amanda Jensen Annebel Trumm Ben VanHorn Brett Foreman Colin Hughes Connor Gibson Dakota Davis Elexia San Nicolas Hannah Stater Kalei Owens Leslie Owusu Madison Watland Preston Larson Reagan Saul Sami Enos

#DiversityIsOurStrength is a public web and mural project developed by Interactive Digital Studies (IDS) majors at the University of Northern Iowa. IDS is an interdisciplinary program focusing on creating digital experiences. We are using what we’ve learned in our culminating IDS Practicum course to create a highly visible public project that both addresses the challenges and embraces the future of educational diversity in the Cedar Valley.

One inspiration for this project came from the 24/7 Wall Street article that identified Waterloo and Cedar Falls as the #1 worst metro area for Black Americans in 2018. Having this distinction continues to be disturbing for all of us. Our second inspiration comes from 1619 Project, a New York Times initiative led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Waterloo native Nikole Hannah-Jones. The project reframes the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

Thank you to literacy educator Dr. Shuaib Meacham, Associate Professor at the University of Iowa, who has guided this project.

Also thank you to Anthony Woodley and Mack Vos for helping in the final stages of the project. Due to COVID-19, the project became delayed and was unable to be completed by the end of the spring semester, and without their help, the project could not have been finished.

PROJECT DOCUMENTATION

Contact Us

Email: diversitystrength@uni.edu