Social Change Week

[Amber]

This was sent to me from someone, as I still get mail regarding my club at Penn State.  I'm only posting but to point out one thing highlighted below.

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From State College to Los Angeles, from Havana to Johannesburg, and from Calcutta to Tokyo people struggle to resolve social problems plaguing their communities.  In our global village college students understanding social issues is a vital component to fulfilling our hopes and dreams.  Social Change Week will integrate classroom learning, civic responsibility, campus life, and international awareness in a way that is both entertaining and enriching.  

The Undergraduate Student Government, Groove Phi Groove social fellowship Inc, and Beta Phi Pi fraternity Inc. have come together to provide Penn State students with an unforgettable experience.  Social Change Week is this year's installment of the Social Change Block Party that took place last year on the HUB lawn. This year's event will be a bigger and more substantial event, though it will remain consistent with the original message of "education through exposure, and change through action."  The weeklong event will consist of programs culminating in the Social Change Block Party on Saturday January 24th 2004 at Heritage Hall.  Each day of the week will be dedicated to one major social issue with topics ranging from children's rights to public education.

The Social Change Block Party will be the BANG that rocks Penn State students into a new state of mind.  The Block Party is designed to engage, stimulate, and empower the thoughts shaping tomorrow.  Through discussion, entertainment, and education we will plant the seeds of hope and transformation into the minds and hearts of our peers.  With a special emphasis on first year students, this is an opportunity for Penn State students to jumpstart their college careers by accepting the challenge of civic responsibility.  

This program further provides a fresh and exciting opportunity for all participants to be active in their local and world communities.  The Social Change Block Party is an information fair where food, and music are offered FREE of charge.  With a focus on community involvement and a large array of Penn State student organizations, cultural dance groups, poets, and performers, Social Change Week promises to be a mental roller coaster of enlightenment, entertainment and critical thought.




Social Change Week
"Education through exposure, change through action"

Social Change Week is an extension of the Social Change Block Party that took place on the HUB lawn last October.
The Block Party was a huge success, bringing together over 20 student and community organizations as well as 250 to 300 students and community members to share and discuss various ideas relevant to our social environment.  The event provided knowledge of the issues that are represented by Penn State students, as well as practical ways for students to get involved. Last year's Social Change Block Party exceeded all expectations, we had a larger attendance than expected and a broader representation of organizations from around the campus.  World-renowned poet, activist, and author Saul Williams delivered a spectacular periodic performance marked by crowd interaction and discussion, appropriately closing the eight-hour event, which effectively ran from 11a.m. to 7p.m.
This year the event will be bigger and more substantial, but it will remain consistent with the original message of "education through exposure, change through action."  The week of civic centered programs will culminate in the Social Change Block Party on Saturday.  Each day of the week will be dedicated to one major social issue with topics ranging from children's rights to public education.
We are submitting this letter to you because we understand that in order for this event to truly be a success we will need the support, cooperation and participation from large and diverse portions of the Penn State Community.
There are many ways to contribute to this event and each contribution will serve to make the week more valuable and more positive for Penn State students.  One way to become apart of this opportunity would be to sponsor a portion of the program: a meal, a speaker, or one of the entertainment sections.  Another way to contribute is to participate in the actual Social Change Block Party by requesting a table for your social change organization (dept/group).  This table will display your organization's mission, purpose and goals.  It will also inform students of the issue that you are engaged in as well as some practical ways that they themselves may get involved if they were interested.  We hope that you will be able to contribute in some way, because we know that your participation will assist in projecting the message of unity, education, and civic involvement that we are trying to convey.


Thank you for your time,


Takkeem Morgan
Committee Chair, Social Change Week

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College careers???  What the hell is that?  You have a career when you are in college?

I just wanted to show how activist indoctrinating minded these people are.  To them, and the students know it and say it mindlessly, the students are just diligent activists while in colleges.  They are used and abused.  It's more important they are out fighting the patriarchy than it is preparing for a career.  

And, of course they hit first year students.  Make sure to hit the ones who are REALLY lost, confused, and depressed from leaving small towns and coming to a large, competitive school, too.  That's the target market for creating good victim minded activists.

[Nichov]

That is the thing I hate most about the educational system, particularly higher education.

You're not exactly speaking YOUR voice if the school has a program all setup for you to say something, along with what you're gonna say.

Besides, in my experience REAL activism is frowned upon in college, in place of FAKE stuff that people just do so they can put it on their resume.

I for one, was sick of the unsanitary of the dormatory bathrooms on weekends when they were not cleaned!  The school doesn't hire custodians to clean them on the weekends, and everybody messes them up especially on weekends, partying and puking.  So I cleaned the bathrooms in my whole dormatory, but does that do anything for my career?  No because I didn't do it through one of these official organizations for activism which actually inhibit change, and cause extreme inefficiency in doing what it is they do.

I was sick of seeing litter around my campus, so I cleaned it up everyday, but does that help my career?  No.  Why?  Because the system doesn't actually care if you did anything for the environment or anything else, they just care if you went to a beurocratic organization, and proved that you are a conformist to the system.  Basically, it proves that you don't really care either and you really just want to further your career, which is exactly the mentality the system wants you to have.

The system wants to give the impression that it cares about things like the environment, and if it's successful, it wins over the people who would otherwise care about their country/community.

When I was cleaning up the campus, I went to the EAC (Environmental Action Committee) and asked them to help.  They all said they were too busy in college to pick up trash.  I said look, we're sitting here in an office talking right now, we could be picking up trash outside while we talk.  You walk back and forth all day on campus, you can bend down and pick up trash on your way.  I said if we do this, as a starting group of a dozen or so, we could change people's minds about their campus, and about activism in general, we could stand a chance of breaking the cycle of apathy in the student population.  Not one of those 'activists' would help me, but they did suggest that I come with them on a date, which was planned a month ahead of time to goto a beach and pick up bottles/trash, I said, if you've planned it a month ahead of time and it's your only event in that time, then you're working too slow for me.

So I went and cleaned up the beach they were talking about single-handedly and 2 weeks before they arrived.  So when they showed up the beach was clean and they had nothing to do.  But what's the difference?  12 people was more than was needed, and they were acting too slowly too inefficiently.

And this all comes down, in the end, to two things, the rules the system creates to slow down such groups, and the single motivating factor for people in such groups, their careers.

Ohh and the school asked me not to clean up litter anymore because it might be taking away from the jobs that the grounds crew can do.  Basically, because of the labor unions, they have a contract that says nobody but the employees who's specific job it is to do so, can clean up trash around the campus, otherwise their jobs are threatened.  I said, well, if they were doing their jobs there wouldn't be any trash.

The do clean the trash around campus, twice a semester, once for homecoming and again for open-campus week when the parents come and see what kind of conditions their kids are living in, which of course gives the parents a false impression of what the campus is usually like and allows the school to get the kudos without paying the full price for it.