“The goals of the week are to raise awareness and involvement, challenge students to consider motivations for community engagement work, strengthen connections between groups and have an interactive program,” said Karen M. Lee, Director of Student Leadership and Engagement for the Community Engagement Center.
Each day of the week has been assigned an issue-area focus—Monday, hunger/homelessness/poverty; Tuesday, education; Wednesday, environment and health; and Thursday, human rights. Each day has or will be accompanied by tabling around campus on these issues. In addition, there will be several speakers on Thursday to speak on human rights followed by a celebration on Friday night featuring a performance by Kelly Tsai, an activist slam poet, in the Friedman Room.
“We’re attempting to facilitate connections between different service and activism groups that normally don’t work together,” said Megan Zapanta ’10, Chair of the Engagement Week Planning Committee. “We’re hoping that this week helps make engagement work a more visible and present force and can become a yearly time to celebrate the efforts of students to improve their community and world.”
In addition to the events and tabling, 500 orange shirts are being distributed to students, faculty and staff. The shirts say “I care about … What’s your issue?” And have a large white circle in the middle which can be filled in with permanent maker, giving people a chance to exclaim what they care about. The leaders of the event are asking everyone to wear their shirts on Friday. “The committee hopes that this will be a visual representation of active citizenship and will spark conversation,” said Lee.
—Jonathan Thrope