Some students wish that the Amherst campus was more unified. Others would like to become more involved in community engagement but have difficulty finding the time. Starting next fall, students may see these wishes come true. A new student organization called the Amherst Community Task-force (ACT) is planning to institute an annual, overarching community engagement theme in which anyone on campus can get involved.

After last fall’s recent opening of the Center for Community Engagement, two groups of students, Community Engagement Leaders and CCE Fellows, were enlisted to figure out how best to meet the needs and interests of Amherst students. From these two groups, ACT was formed for the purpose of stimulating a culture of community engagement on campus.

At a meeting Sunday night, members of ACT met with student group leaders to discuss their visions of a campus-wide community engagement movement and to decide on an encompassing theme for the upcoming year.

Based on a survey conducted a few weeks ago, in which ACT asked students in which area of community engagement they were most interested, ACT members and student group leaders decided on the theme: education.

The ACT’s hope is that the whole campus will soon be “buzzing” about the theme, and students will become more engaged not only through service, but also through more discussion and critical thinking with other students and faculty about issues concerning the theme.

ACT member Caitlin Patterson ’10 emphasized that the role of the ACT is not to oversee daily activities of student groups, but rather to get more people involved. “We don’t want to overhaul the Amherst community, but making even a small change would be great,” she said. “If we could have even just 20 more students get involved in community engagement during the school year, then our movement would be successful.”

In implementing this movement, ACT plans on dividing the school year into three sections, each targeting a different community to which Amherst students belong: the global, national and local communities, respectively. Throughout the school year, various student groups, faculty and staff will plan and participate in events that address different aspects of education. ACT also hopes that the theme of education will become integrated into First-Year Orientation, colloquiums and other academic forums.

During the meeting, ACT member Sid Salvi ’11 addressed the concern that establishing a theme may be divisive or limit the scope of community engagement at the College. “We hope that each group can find their niche within the theme,” he said. “We want the school to be united behind a common aim and have some continuity throughout the school year.” ACT believes that the theme of education will be flexible and allow people to formulate creative ways to use the issue as a way to get as many aspects of campus involved as possible.

Fellow ACT member Lili Ferguson ’10 articulated the goal of the overarching community theme. “We just want to have community engagement become an innate part of college life.”