The Dalton Institute held the the Institute on College Values event. This year’s theme was “Student Activism & Advocacy: Education’s Role in Fostering Ethical Leadership and Moral Commitment”. The keynote speaker Dr. Atira Charles touched on numerous themes that everyone could relate to. Dr. Charles really had the audience engaged with her confident yet witty speech. I could see everyone’s eyes were very attentive to her movements, the tone of her voice, her approach of conversation. Dr. Charles weaved through distinct themes that allowed the audience to feel connected in an interpersonal manner.
“Intra-individual- emotions we have, impacts the behavior” stated by Dr. Charles herself, was the opening to her first theme, “Identity: Individual
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Contrary to this theme being introduced earlier in the speech, it resonated with me most. The whole student deals with students crying out because they want to express and be accepted through their whole self and not have to play chameleon. The student cry is essentially the student feeling helpless and feel like an outcast. I relate to this most because I currently struggle with finding my identity. I am lost, walking down a lonely winding road. I have no clue where I fit in, even with relationships I’ve already established with others. To sum it up, in a crowd of familiar faces, I am still lonely. This in turns, leads to the “Psychology of threat” theme. Dr. Atira explained a metaphor to the audience. This example referred to people wearing a T-shirt. The T-shirt is a reflection of one’s self-being and how one is either satisfied or dissatisfied with that shirt. Taking off the shirt or changing it would deal with the individual going through a liminal phase of life, which ultimately leads to them incorporating a new aspect of themselves to their whole self. Derived from the “Psychology of Affirmation” theme, “Affirmation isn’t simply positive thinking. It transforms the way people think; that’s way more positive then their …show more content…
Charles have been involved with many different projects. One that interested me was her publication titled, “The Intersection of Race and Politics: A Framework of Racialized Organizational Politics Perceptions”. This book talks about the magnitude at which individuals are convinced that their racial class is impacting their social intercommunications and shared meanings as well as the possibility to maneuver through the environment in a way that is beneficial to them and affiliates of their racial class. I do agree with the book in the sense that society as a whole encompasses different races that solely look out for their group. For example, the current black lives matter movement depicts the adversities of what it is and what it means to be an African American in todays society. Nowadays, black individuals are looking out for each other and are basically confining their actions so that white individuals would not have a reason to retaliate. As a racial class, we unite to better our social standing and protect our rights from being
W.E.B. DuBois was an educator, writer, scholar, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, and later in his life a communist, whose life goal was to gain equal rights for all African Americans around the world. DuBois’ writings were mostly forgotten till the late 1960s, because of his involvement in communism and his absence during the civil rights movement in America. Even though his writings were temporarily forgotten because of his tarnished reputation, his legacy has since been restored allowing for his writings to be reprinted becoming a major influence for both academics and activists. DuBois’ accomplishments include his part in the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and his support for the civil rights movement advocating for equal social and economic rights for all African Americans. His accomplishments and efforts in order to gain equal treatment for African Americans outweigh his shortcomings and failures.
“Throughout her professional life, [Anna Julia Cooper] advocated equal rights for women of color...and was particularly concerned with the civil, educational, and economic rights of Black women” (Thomas & Jackson, 2007, p. 363).
Anne Moody’s memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, is an influential insight into the existence of a young girl growing up in the South during the Civil-Rights Movement. Moody’s book records her coming of age as a woman, and possibly more significantly, it chronicles her coming of age as a politically active Negro woman. She is faced with countless problems dealing with the racism and threat of the South as a poor African American female. Her childhood and early years in school set up groundwork for her racial consciousness. Moody assembled that foundation as she went to college and scatter the seeds of political activism. During her later years in college, Moody became active in numerous organizations devoted to creating changes to the civil rights of her people. These actions ultimately led to her disillusionment with the success of the movement, despite her constant action. These factors have contributed in shaping her attitude towards race and her skepticism about fundamental change in society.
America have a long history of black’s relationship with their fellow white citizens, there’s two authors that dedicated their whole life, fighting for equality for blacks in America. – Audre Lorde and Brent Staples. They both devoted their professional careers outlying their opinions, on how to reduce the hatred towards blacks and other colored. From their contributions they left a huge impression on many academic studies and Americans about the lack of awareness, on race issues that are towards African-American. There’s been countless, of critical evidence that these two prolific writers will always be synonymous to writing great academic papers, after reading and learning about their life experience, from their memoirs.
Anne Moody had thought about joining the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but she never did until she found out one of her roommates at Tougaloo college was the secretary. Her roommate asked, “why don’t you become a member” (248), so Anne did. Once she went to a meeting, she became actively involved. She was always participating in various freedom marches, would go out into the community to get black people to register to vote. She always seemed to be working on getting support from the black community, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Son after she joined the NAACP, she met a girl that was the secretary to the ...
Chisholm, Shirley. "Race, Revolution and Women." The Black Scholar 42.2 (2012): 31-35. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 May 2016.
Angela Davis grew up surrounded by politically opinionated, educated, and successful family members who influenced her ideals and encouraged her development and ambition. Her father attended St Augustine’s College, a historically black school in North Carolina (Davis 20). Her brother, Ben Davis, was a successful football player who was a member of teams such as the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions (Davis 23). Her mother, Sallye Davis, was substantially involved in the civil rights movement and was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Davis 42). In addition, her mother joined the Southern Negro Youth Congress which had strong ties to the Communist Party. This involvement greatly influenced Davis as she had many associations with members of the party which later shaped her political views (“Complexity, Activism, Optimism: An Interview with Angela Y. Davis”).
... integrity. Through the Community Action Program I visited two third grade classes at the elementary school that my company sponsors. The school is sorely lacking in funds and many of the children come from homes where their families are struggling to provide them with the skills necessary to succeed in school. I taught the students for five weeks about the variety of skills one must learn to run a business and how various businesses are needed for a city to function. Each classroom was comprised entirely of children from one of two different ethnic groups, but both were from homes where English was not the first language. I believe my affinity for developing relationships with and between people will be an asset both in the classroom and in the legal profession. I look forward to rising to the challenge of constant change and growth in the ever-evolving field of law.
Chisholm, Shirley. "Race, Revolution and Women." The Black Scholar 42.2 (2012): 31-35. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 May 2016.
The primary trait that I lack is confidence. In my mind, others are always smarter, prettier, more driven, and just better than me. Because of this attitude, I do not usually voice my opinions, state my ideas, or take control of anything; I automatically assume that anything I say or do is wrong or stupid. Although I still need to work on strengthening my confidence, SMU’s community atmosphere, specifically the Hilltop scholars program, has given me the enormous confidence boost I need to step out of my comfort zone and make my ideas a reality. A gain of confidence through supportive communities is apparent in the films Legally Blonde, Renaissance Man, and Higher Learning because each film includes individuals who need greater self-confidence, which comes from the support of their communities. In “The Quest for Community in Higher Education,” Parker Palmer outlines specifically how community can build up confidence. Additionally, in “The SMU Community According to Etzioni,” Christiano Gallo illustrates that confidence promotes involvement, which promotes confidence. The support I feel from various members of the SMU community has provided me with experiences similar to Elle, Rago, and Malik’s and has helped me understand how Palmer’s ideas foster confidence. Also, encouragement from others has opened my eyes to how involvement can instill confidence. Community gives us somebody to lean on. Somebody to lean on gives us confidence.
Ethos is integrated well with Clayton’s personal feelings by stating, “[P]ervasive change in societal values [can make] students easily be snared if they lack a strong moral compass.” (20) However, Clayton goes right back to his quotes after having only one de...
The disciplines are simply a means to that end.” During my time here, I have focused most of my course work on the following: rhetoric, identity, and social change. How do these elements all effect each other and how do we use communication strategies and theories to make an impact on the world? In my previous course called Communication and Inclusion, Professor Sarah Jackson had written an article for the CAMD website called, “Looking ahead: Social movements in 2015.” Here, she talks about the most recent deaths at the time of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in NYC. These killings had brought up issues of race and inequality in America and essentially started the first major wave of the Black Lives Matter Movement. In her class specifically she taught about “how social and political identities are constructed in the public sphere, with a particular focus on how race and gender are constructed in national debates”
Instead of teaching us how to do projects and essays, how to use the quadratic formula, how to understand the concept of war, teach us instead the art of persuasion. Teach us the ways of entertaining an audience, the dilemmas that the world faces. Teach us that there are an enormous amount of issues in the world and they come with an abundant amount of solutions. To learn how to engage an audience is to learn how to teach one.
Colleges and Universities play a major role in developing the behavioral patterns of young adults. In addition to developing young minds, colleges help to cultivate character, responsibility, and social acceptable behavior. Students who attend Carlford have expressed their dissent with the current environment of the university. Because of these underling issues, Carlford’s retention rates amongst minorities have suffered. If Kirsten is unable to handle the situation, there will be a trickledown effect to all areas of the university. Being a new professional in the field of Higher Education can be challenge. There are times where an incident directly affects your position and there are other times where there issues that affect the entire institution. Because the issue directly pertains to Greek Life, the Coordinator of Fraternities and Sororities has the responsibility of identifying the concerns and implementing initiatives that will allow the college to be proactive in future situations of this nature.
Theater 180 addressed the quest question of how do people understand and engage in community life? Through this class I’ve gained a better understanding of what civic engagement is. At the start of this semester I had very minimal knowledge about civic engagement. As far as I knew civic engagement was just volunteering but nothing much beyond that. With this class I have learned that civic engagement is much more than just volunteer work.