In the corner of the food court, three students sat around a table decorating yellow cards with words that best described who they were. In that moment, they were not thinking about a label or stereotype that others may put them under. This activity encouraged the students to forget about what society saw them as and described with art supplies what they believed represented them best.
Last week, campus counselor Ginger Boller organized different activities for social justice week, as part of her campus outreach project. Students took part in activities where they were able to get to know someone they had not met before, as well as being able to express themselves for who they believed they were through crafts.
“One way we can value diversity in others is just getting to know them,” Boller said.
The first activity included two fliers that students could read to get a better understanding of the word social justice. Along with those fliers, participants received a paper with questions in which they would ask to a random partner to get to know them better. For the second activity, students received a yellow half-sheet of paper and art supplies of their choice where they would decorate the card in a way that explained who they were beyond the labels of society.
“We need to be especially open-minded because when we label people, that’s all we define them by and when they do something contradictory to that label, we just shun that evidence away,” psychology and sociology junior Catherine Stepniak said.
Boller said this was the first time the concept of social justice was introduced to students on campus. She said she believes that the first step to this new event is to establish a conversation.
“We would have students come up and ask us what this was about,” Boller said. “Some of them really didn’t have an understanding of what the term social justice meant so we wanted to do activities that introduced the concept.”
As Boller came up with activities for social justice week, she also went to other groups to ask if they would help her with this project. University Programming Board members promoted social justice while also educating students about black history month by showing the movie Selma.
“I want students to know why they did what they did in Selma and the outcome it had upon today’s society,” UPB member and junior in financial accounting Joshua Cartwright said.
Cammie Dean, director of student development and orientation, explained how black history month and social justice were able to tie into each other. She said the events put on by UPB happened to fit the bill for both black history month and social justice week.
“The movie itself gives both a piece of black history, civil rights history and human rights history in combination with some inspiration for us in 2016 to think about the kind of world we want to have and what it takes to stand up for it,” Dean said.
While Boller researched information about social justice, she was able to get a better understanding of the concept herself.
“The way that I understand it is eliminating barriers,” Boller said. “When you notice those barriers, that’s an area in the world where there’s social injustice, whether it’s because of your sexual orientation or your skin color, it’s those demographic things that we think about.”
Although this was the first time campus groups hosted social justice activities on campus, Boller said she hopes this project will grow.
“These activities were designed to start a conversation and to get students thinking,” Boller said. “Hopefully this is something that everybody wants to continue on campus. Hopefully next year we’ll add another layer and another layer and this will become a big event.”