Check out Drew Granchelli's post about IMPACT on the HeadCount blog: http://www.headcount.org/blog/?p=14
HeadCount was created in 2004 by a group of artists, music industry professionals and fans, all determined to make sure the live music community is well-represented at the polls.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
John: Everybody, Every Day -- We Are the Leaders of Today
I am now back at Miami University in Oxford, and I have already started reflecting on my experience at the IMPACT conference this weekend. The internet at the Boston P
ark Plaza cost ten dollars for thirty minutes of use, and I didn’t want to haul my laptop to Northeastern, and thus wasn’t able to live-blog or provide daily updates, so I will consolidate some of my thoughts in this post. But, before I do that, I must say, I loved Boston. Growing up in Philadelphia taught me about city life and though I’ve spent time in Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, D.C., and large cities abroad, I found Boston to be refreshing, clean, and pleasant. I was able to catch up with a few old friends who go to Harvard and Boston College, and able to see Cambridge, downtown, the Charles River, and Back Bay. I enjoyed taking the T everywhere and one of my favorite parts of being in any city is stumbling upon unexpected things, which happened more than a few times on this trip (I got to meet Tom Hanks on the street, and took part in a dance party put on by a group from New York City in a Red Line T car as we rode over the Charles River at night). I found the city's people incredibly friendly, and I hope to return here someday.
Every once in awhile, I’ll meet someone who has a positive impact on me, whether he or she knows it or not. I often write about these people in my ‘other’ blog -- “Life in the Fast Lane” -- and they include people like my peer mentor, Miami’s former Associate Vice President of Student Affairs, and occasionally a professor. After Chase and I facilitated our Scholar-Leader: A Student-Directed Community workshop, which went fabulously, Stephanie gave me recommendations for which workshop I should attend. I ended up deciding to attend “Building a Movement: Ready, Go, Get Set,” facilitated by Wayne Meisel, president of the Bonner Foundation. Though it seems very similar to Miami’s Wilks Leadership Institute, I had never heard of the Bonner Foundation until this weekend, but was left with an incredibly positive impression of both the student Bonner Leaders and of the people at the top of the organization, a few of whom were at the conference. At his workshop,
Wayne Meisel talked about making community service a team sport, and about how it’s important for idealistic students to put the community back in community service. In an energizing session in which Wayne made us all stand up, workshop attendees repeated after him: “We are the leaders of tomorrow!” (“we are the leaders of tomorrow!”), “if we wait!” (“if we wait!”), “we won’t wait!” (“we won’t wait!”), “we won’t wait!” (“we won’t wait!”). In the seminar, Wayne had students list reasons why it’s difficult to get other students involved; then, as a group, we discussed strategies that addressed these difficulties. I learned so much from what everyone had to say – from how students pair residence hall corridors with different communities – neighborhoods, YMCAs, schools, etc. to how students get others engaged -- and I have adopted one of Wayne’s catch phrases as my own: “everybody, everyday.” This has been my vision as an Office of Community Engagement Student Service Guide and Honors Program Community Service Associate – to get as many people involved with meaningful, mutually-beneficial service projects every day. Like Wayne said, community service is a team sport. It was incredible to meet a pioneer in the service-learning field and having the chance to attend his workshop and talk to him made the conference go from 100% awesome to 110% awesome.
ark Plaza cost ten dollars for thirty minutes of use, and I didn’t want to haul my laptop to Northeastern, and thus wasn’t able to live-blog or provide daily updates, so I will consolidate some of my thoughts in this post. But, before I do that, I must say, I loved Boston. Growing up in Philadelphia taught me about city life and though I’ve spent time in Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, D.C., and large cities abroad, I found Boston to be refreshing, clean, and pleasant. I was able to catch up with a few old friends who go to Harvard and Boston College, and able to see Cambridge, downtown, the Charles River, and Back Bay. I enjoyed taking the T everywhere and one of my favorite parts of being in any city is stumbling upon unexpected things, which happened more than a few times on this trip (I got to meet Tom Hanks on the street, and took part in a dance party put on by a group from New York City in a Red Line T car as we rode over the Charles River at night). I found the city's people incredibly friendly, and I hope to return here someday.Every once in awhile, I’ll meet someone who has a positive impact on me, whether he or she knows it or not. I often write about these people in my ‘other’ blog -- “Life in the Fast Lane” -- and they include people like my peer mentor, Miami’s former Associate Vice President of Student Affairs, and occasionally a professor. After Chase and I facilitated our Scholar-Leader: A Student-Directed Community workshop, which went fabulously, Stephanie gave me recommendations for which workshop I should attend. I ended up deciding to attend “Building a Movement: Ready, Go, Get Set,” facilitated by Wayne Meisel, president of the Bonner Foundation. Though it seems very similar to Miami’s Wilks Leadership Institute, I had never heard of the Bonner Foundation until this weekend, but was left with an incredibly positive impression of both the student Bonner Leaders and of the people at the top of the organization, a few of whom were at the conference. At his workshop,
Wayne Meisel talked about making community service a team sport, and about how it’s important for idealistic students to put the community back in community service. In an energizing session in which Wayne made us all stand up, workshop attendees repeated after him: “We are the leaders of tomorrow!” (“we are the leaders of tomorrow!”), “if we wait!” (“if we wait!”), “we won’t wait!” (“we won’t wait!”), “we won’t wait!” (“we won’t wait!”). In the seminar, Wayne had students list reasons why it’s difficult to get other students involved; then, as a group, we discussed strategies that addressed these difficulties. I learned so much from what everyone had to say – from how students pair residence hall corridors with different communities – neighborhoods, YMCAs, schools, etc. to how students get others engaged -- and I have adopted one of Wayne’s catch phrases as my own: “everybody, everyday.” This has been my vision as an Office of Community Engagement Student Service Guide and Honors Program Community Service Associate – to get as many people involved with meaningful, mutually-beneficial service projects every day. Like Wayne said, community service is a team sport. It was incredible to meet a pioneer in the service-learning field and having the chance to attend his workshop and talk to him made the conference go from 100% awesome to 110% awesome.Another event that was meaningful for me was the hunger banquet on Friday night. I learned that countries with the smallest carbon footprint suffer the most from developed countries’ 
overuse of fossil fuels, and that global warming harms crops. I hope to bring OxFam America to Oxford – not only for a hunger banquet, but also because it seems they might be able to help with a microlending program a peer in our PLEAS – Peer Leaders for Engagement and Service – Program, which I co-founded, is developing. Also, a Vista volunteer’s story was really emotional: she commented that the school’s Adopt-a-School equivalent has parents who cannot afford to pay the fifteen dollars to keep their children in the program, but her school pours millions of dollars into the athletic program. Finally, I hope to incorporate a Midnight Run, which a student shared with the group, into the Urban Plunges I’m planning – this involves students making bagged lunches for the homeless and delivering them to urban areas in the middle of the night.
Overall, I thought this year’s IMPACT conference went well; I got a lot out of it. It was a weekend of fiery idealism, a demonstration of the convictions of students across the country, a good time for networking and socializing with other student leaders, and a good space for me to learn, rejuvenate, reflect on my experiences, and plan for my future at Miami University and beyond. Also, I like to end some of my blog posts with some inspiration. At various points throughout the conference, the song "World" by the band Five for Fighting came to mind. While I don't know how to get the video to play on this blog, here's a link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-kpR32B-Uk&feature=related.
John
Heather C: End of the Road?
I had every intention of posting to the blog throughout the conference, but was somehow always occupied with things like running to the printer or defying the time-space continuum to get a speaker to the conference on-schedule. So, here we are, two days after the conclusion of the conference, and I'm finally getting to blog.
The conference was good. It was good to see old faces, it was good to see new faces, and it was good to feed off the energy of 900+ people who want to spend a weekend learning about new and exciting ways to make the world a better place. It was good to think about the things we did right as a planning committee, and (hard as it is) it was good to think about all the things that we didn't do right...and get the chance to do right next year.
I'm back to my day job now at PledgeBank (which you should check out if you haven't already), and it's a little lonely to sit in my living room without the din of 900 people echoing in my ears. The good news is that we're already starting to think and talk as a planning committee about what next year will bring, and how we can improve the weekend to include more people, teach about more issues, appeal to more learning styles, and gather together more campuses.
We'll be sending out an online evaluation in the next few days so that you can share your thoughts with us. In the meantime, please feel free to send thoughts our way by emailing chairs@campusconference.org. If you have compliments, complaints, suggestions, or shout-outs, email us -- we're eager to hear your impressions of this year and your ideas for next year!
The good news is that, though we've reached the end of the road for 2008, 2009 is just around the corner!
Thanks to everyone for a great conference!
The conference was good. It was good to see old faces, it was good to see new faces, and it was good to feed off the energy of 900+ people who want to spend a weekend learning about new and exciting ways to make the world a better place. It was good to think about the things we did right as a planning committee, and (hard as it is) it was good to think about all the things that we didn't do right...and get the chance to do right next year.
I'm back to my day job now at PledgeBank (which you should check out if you haven't already), and it's a little lonely to sit in my living room without the din of 900 people echoing in my ears. The good news is that we're already starting to think and talk as a planning committee about what next year will bring, and how we can improve the weekend to include more people, teach about more issues, appeal to more learning styles, and gather together more campuses.
We'll be sending out an online evaluation in the next few days so that you can share your thoughts with us. In the meantime, please feel free to send thoughts our way by emailing chairs@campusconference.org. If you have compliments, complaints, suggestions, or shout-outs, email us -- we're eager to hear your impressions of this year and your ideas for next year!
The good news is that, though we've reached the end of the road for 2008, 2009 is just around the corner!
Thanks to everyone for a great conference!
Posts from Better World Books
Monday, March 10, 2008
Quique: Day 3
A description of the events I attended on Sunday:
-Equal Expectations, Equal Access: Early College Awareness workshop. A group from Lassell College presented on a program they had with a public school in downtown Boston where they would do activities to raise college awareness. I think the best part of the program wasn't necessarily raising awareness, but the fact that they would tutor kids in math and reading. I think the best way to make students want to go to college is by getting them to find learning to be something fun and useful, schools are not very good at this task and mentoring programs are the way to get this done. It was a good workshop, there were many interesting comments.
-The Privilege Line: The Privilege Line is an exercise where the students line up in a line and then step forward if they are privileged and backward otherwise with respect to a set of 60 questions read by the speaker. Depending on how far in front you are or how far back you are you can see how privileged your past life has been. Of course there are many variables in play in an exercise like this, as the questions aren't black or white, and many of them are about what you perceive, so it seems like being paranoid would make you step backward more often and being naive would make you step forward more often. The exercise was interesting, but the discussion that followed it was more interesting as we got to hear the thoughts of many of the students and why they thought they were in the back, or in the front, how we could be unaware of how privileged we have been and how we can use this information to let the generations to come all be in better situations.
-Closing Session: The closing session had three speakers. The first one talked about mentoring and since this is something I do I was very interested in his words. I think he did a good job to make mentoring sound important. The second speaker was Jarret Barrios, who was state senator of Massachusetts at some point. I liked his speech, the speech was a bit metaphysical as it was based on a book by Borges. He talked about how the analogy of the infinite library in Borges story "The Library of Babel". As a fan of Borges' short stories it was fun to listen to this speech. I thought he talked about important values in society and I liked his quote of the statue of Liberty. What I didn't like that much is how the word America was used over and over again. Personally, I like thinking more about how the world should be and not how America should be.
The third speaker was Staceyann Chin and from the get go it was clear that this wouldn't be a normal speech. The speech started slow with a couple of jokes, then all of sudden she moved away from the microphone and started giving the speech in her own voice. The speech was very powerful and very intense, it was even uncomfortable to listen to it, but one could feel her passion and her thirst for justice in the world. She recited a poem that I thought was great. It is hard to describe how powerful this performance was, it was an event I don't think I'll ever forget.
This concludes my journey through this conference. I thought the conference was great in showcasing how to raise awareness of issues, but I don't know how good it was in terms of getting action done besides raising awareness. I guess, the main thing I got out of the conference is that energy and passion for justice can motivate people to work harder for a better world.
-Equal Expectations, Equal Access: Early College Awareness workshop. A group from Lassell College presented on a program they had with a public school in downtown Boston where they would do activities to raise college awareness. I think the best part of the program wasn't necessarily raising awareness, but the fact that they would tutor kids in math and reading. I think the best way to make students want to go to college is by getting them to find learning to be something fun and useful, schools are not very good at this task and mentoring programs are the way to get this done. It was a good workshop, there were many interesting comments.
-The Privilege Line: The Privilege Line is an exercise where the students line up in a line and then step forward if they are privileged and backward otherwise with respect to a set of 60 questions read by the speaker. Depending on how far in front you are or how far back you are you can see how privileged your past life has been. Of course there are many variables in play in an exercise like this, as the questions aren't black or white, and many of them are about what you perceive, so it seems like being paranoid would make you step backward more often and being naive would make you step forward more often. The exercise was interesting, but the discussion that followed it was more interesting as we got to hear the thoughts of many of the students and why they thought they were in the back, or in the front, how we could be unaware of how privileged we have been and how we can use this information to let the generations to come all be in better situations.
-Closing Session: The closing session had three speakers. The first one talked about mentoring and since this is something I do I was very interested in his words. I think he did a good job to make mentoring sound important. The second speaker was Jarret Barrios, who was state senator of Massachusetts at some point. I liked his speech, the speech was a bit metaphysical as it was based on a book by Borges. He talked about how the analogy of the infinite library in Borges story "The Library of Babel". As a fan of Borges' short stories it was fun to listen to this speech. I thought he talked about important values in society and I liked his quote of the statue of Liberty. What I didn't like that much is how the word America was used over and over again. Personally, I like thinking more about how the world should be and not how America should be.
The third speaker was Staceyann Chin and from the get go it was clear that this wouldn't be a normal speech. The speech started slow with a couple of jokes, then all of sudden she moved away from the microphone and started giving the speech in her own voice. The speech was very powerful and very intense, it was even uncomfortable to listen to it, but one could feel her passion and her thirst for justice in the world. She recited a poem that I thought was great. It is hard to describe how powerful this performance was, it was an event I don't think I'll ever forget.
This concludes my journey through this conference. I thought the conference was great in showcasing how to raise awareness of issues, but I don't know how good it was in terms of getting action done besides raising awareness. I guess, the main thing I got out of the conference is that energy and passion for justice can motivate people to work harder for a better world.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Josh: Connecting the Grassroots and the Netroots
Catching up on some news from yesterday...
The online networking session run by Youth Noise was a huge resource, introducing me to at least 20 new websites for collecting news, creating change, and connecting with others. We had a really good debate about how much we can do online and how much traditional, person to person organizing is still needed. There was some great arguments for both online organizing and offline activism. In the end, I still think that a movement demands us to engage offline and build relationships face to face even while we leverage the transformative technology that is available online to maximize our efforts.
The online networking session run by Youth Noise was a huge resource, introducing me to at least 20 new websites for collecting news, creating change, and connecting with others. We had a really good debate about how much we can do online and how much traditional, person to person organizing is still needed. There was some great arguments for both online organizing and offline activism. In the end, I still think that a movement demands us to engage offline and build relationships face to face even while we leverage the transformative technology that is available online to maximize our efforts.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Quique: Day 2
The day started with a nice breakfast (I can't believe I was up so early) and then lots of workshops, here's the description of the one's I went to:
-Better World Books: In this informal drive, 4 presenters talked about Better World Books and how to do drives on campus to get books to donate to them and sent to places like Africa, SouthEast Asia and Latin America. Better World books sells used books that they collect on drives to donate to places around the world. Their system is made to make the most funding available possible to places of need, plus helping by being environmentally aware. I liked this presentation a lot and now I will check their website whenever I want to buy a book instead of checking Amazon.
-Faces of Homelessness: Three ex-homeless people gave a talk about their lives and the point that got across was that homelessness can occur to anyone. The first speaker, James, has a college degree, worked at NASA for seven years, had another good job in government for thirteen years and then all of a sudden went into a bout of depression and after going downhill ended up losing his family and his home. Someone seemingly living the American dream became homeless. The second speaker also voiced how she went to becoming homeless from one day to the next (she actually had 48 hours to evict her house). The third speaker, Kyla, was only thirteen yet spoke eloquently. She's the daughter of the second speaker and I could tell the room was in awe at how clear and eloquent the young girl was. The workshop made a big impact on me.
-End World Hunger: This was a workshop led by Oxfam. I was interested in seeing what they would do as I donate money to their organization. I thought the presentation was very good and I had fun working in a group to discuss how to raise awareness doing a series of events at our campuses (we were dispersed in four groups of between six and eight people).
-Film Screening "The Education of Shelby Knox". I was very interested in seeing this movie, specially after reading it had been selected at Sundance (Sundance is a great film festival). The movie follows Shelby Knox for three years in Lubbock, Texas in her fight to put sex-ed in public classrooms in Texas. It was very surprising to me (even though I grew up on the border with Texas) to see how much hate there is in those parts of Texas against homosexuals and how close minded they are with respect to sexual education. Texas is a big state and my city (El Paso) is quite far from Lubbock (later Shelby would tell me that Eastwood High School in El Paso has good sex ed). There's a lot of interesting things to reflect on this movie. One is how there are many people that are very good (you could see people working for a cause), two is that you can change people's minds with facts, the best example is how Shelby's parents because of their love for their daughter were very open to the information and besides being very conservative and Republican were supporting Shelby all the way. The documentary was very good and I got a lot out of it. I also enjoyed the Q&A session with Shelby as she had some more information to give us and some closure on some of the things that have happened since.
It was a long day as it started very early, but it was great, I had a lot of fun and I felt that I learned a lot.
-Quique, Dartmouth College
-Better World Books: In this informal drive, 4 presenters talked about Better World Books and how to do drives on campus to get books to donate to them and sent to places like Africa, SouthEast Asia and Latin America. Better World books sells used books that they collect on drives to donate to places around the world. Their system is made to make the most funding available possible to places of need, plus helping by being environmentally aware. I liked this presentation a lot and now I will check their website whenever I want to buy a book instead of checking Amazon.
-Faces of Homelessness: Three ex-homeless people gave a talk about their lives and the point that got across was that homelessness can occur to anyone. The first speaker, James, has a college degree, worked at NASA for seven years, had another good job in government for thirteen years and then all of a sudden went into a bout of depression and after going downhill ended up losing his family and his home. Someone seemingly living the American dream became homeless. The second speaker also voiced how she went to becoming homeless from one day to the next (she actually had 48 hours to evict her house). The third speaker, Kyla, was only thirteen yet spoke eloquently. She's the daughter of the second speaker and I could tell the room was in awe at how clear and eloquent the young girl was. The workshop made a big impact on me.
-End World Hunger: This was a workshop led by Oxfam. I was interested in seeing what they would do as I donate money to their organization. I thought the presentation was very good and I had fun working in a group to discuss how to raise awareness doing a series of events at our campuses (we were dispersed in four groups of between six and eight people).
-Film Screening "The Education of Shelby Knox". I was very interested in seeing this movie, specially after reading it had been selected at Sundance (Sundance is a great film festival). The movie follows Shelby Knox for three years in Lubbock, Texas in her fight to put sex-ed in public classrooms in Texas. It was very surprising to me (even though I grew up on the border with Texas) to see how much hate there is in those parts of Texas against homosexuals and how close minded they are with respect to sexual education. Texas is a big state and my city (El Paso) is quite far from Lubbock (later Shelby would tell me that Eastwood High School in El Paso has good sex ed). There's a lot of interesting things to reflect on this movie. One is how there are many people that are very good (you could see people working for a cause), two is that you can change people's minds with facts, the best example is how Shelby's parents because of their love for their daughter were very open to the information and besides being very conservative and Republican were supporting Shelby all the way. The documentary was very good and I got a lot out of it. I also enjoyed the Q&A session with Shelby as she had some more information to give us and some closure on some of the things that have happened since.
It was a long day as it started very early, but it was great, I had a lot of fun and I felt that I learned a lot.
-Quique, Dartmouth College
Laura: What a day!
Today has been so busy! This morning we came to campus for our workshops. I went to a great session on the millennial generation and political engagement and enjoyed conversations with students from around the country about their perspectives on politics. We also came up with some ideas about how to increase political engagement on our own campuses--some pretty creative ideas including the use of social networking sites like facebook, involving students in public policy research, and making greater connections between students and politicians. We also had a great discussion about local vs. global issues and which are more effective on our campuses in involving students.
For workshop sessions two and three, I joined more practical, skill-based sessions on facilitation and recruiting. First, I headed to a workshop on the roles of effective facilitators. It was a great opportunity to practice facilitation skills and get ideas about how to train the students I work with to be better facilitators. The recruitment session was great as well, giving me the chance to talk with folks from other campuses and organizations and start to think about the programs I work with to increase our numbers--and the engagement of the students involved in our programs.
We just finished our keynote session for the evening, with three great speakers: Robert Gittens, the Vice President for Public Affairs here at Northeastern; Wayne Meisel, the President of the Bonner Foundation; and Shelby Knox, a young activist and star of the film The Education of Shelby Knox.
One of the best things about this conference is the networking, and of course, the reunions with old friends! It's been great to see folks I haven't seen in a while and get to have conversations about things that matter. I'm also enjoying the chance to hear about innovative new projects that leverage technology to raise funds and serve the public good. I've been talking with Robert Tolmach and learning about an organization he works with, Changing the Present. From their website you can give gifts that support a wide variety of causes. One of the things I know a number of folks will love is the facebook application they've created. On facebook, you can give "gifts" for $1, like a picture of a cupcake on a friend's birthday. Changing the Present has created an application that allows you to use that same $1 to give a gift that will support things like rescuing orphaned chimpanzees, providing schoolbooks for children, or supporting an all-female de-mining team. I've given a few gifts on facebook (mostly since I just know that little picture of a tiara will make my friend smile), and I'm excited about this creative new way to make the $1 I spent on that virtual gift go a little further and do a little good. It's creative projects like this that make this conference so inspiring: inventive ideas to serve the common good. The opportunities fair, open yesterday and today, was full of neat ideas like this.
It's been a long day and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's workshops. (Well, first a good rest, but then the workshops.) Before that, though, I'm here at the Bonner Program reception, where students from Bonner programs all over the United States have gathered to discuss civic engagement and the connections between service and politics. It's pretty awesome to see so many (looks like 150+) students here engaging in this kind of discussion!
--Laura Megivern, Johnson State College
Josh: Media Reformers Pack the Room
Just finished with my morning session on “Student Action for Media Reform” and met a ton of amazing people. The little classroom was packed with almost 50 people from all over and with a range of interests: journalism, technology, anthropology, media studies, and much more.
However – I forgot to had around a sign up sheet so if you were in this session drop me an email: jstearns@freepress.net so we can continue this conversation.
We talked a bit about what was wrong with the media – but focused most of our time on what we can do about. Folks in the room were already working on a number of exciting projects and from what I could tell were really interested in how media reform intersected with the other issues they cared about.
After a quick discussion of the StopBigMedia campaign – we broke into pairs and discussed the how the media was serving us and what a better media might look like. The media gets a free license to use the public airwaves and in return are supposed to serve the public, so we spent some time talking about what it would look like to serve the public. People called for more investigative journalism, more diverse viewpoints, more context and local issues, more youth oriented reporting, and more.
Once we have a vision of a better media we talked about a few ways to get there: 1) Write Your Local Stations: Stations all have to keep a public record of any complaints they get so you can help build the case for a better media by writing your station. 2) Inspect Station’s Public Record: you can view a stations public record and write up a report about what you find there – publish it in the local paper and spread the word about how the station is serving your community. 3) Fight a License Renewal: use that info to petition the FCC to deny a station its license to broadcast. 4) In-district Meeting: Then meet with your policy maker and ask them to hold these stations accountable to serve the local community.
You can find tips and tricks on how to put a campaign like this together at www.freepress.net or www.stopbigmedia.com.
More to come soon…
Josh Stearns Free Press/Stop Big Media/ Save the Internet
However – I forgot to had around a sign up sheet so if you were in this session drop me an email: jstearns@freepress.net so we can continue this conversation.
We talked a bit about what was wrong with the media – but focused most of our time on what we can do about. Folks in the room were already working on a number of exciting projects and from what I could tell were really interested in how media reform intersected with the other issues they cared about.
After a quick discussion of the StopBigMedia campaign – we broke into pairs and discussed the how the media was serving us and what a better media might look like. The media gets a free license to use the public airwaves and in return are supposed to serve the public, so we spent some time talking about what it would look like to serve the public. People called for more investigative journalism, more diverse viewpoints, more context and local issues, more youth oriented reporting, and more.
Once we have a vision of a better media we talked about a few ways to get there: 1) Write Your Local Stations: Stations all have to keep a public record of any complaints they get so you can help build the case for a better media by writing your station. 2) Inspect Station’s Public Record: you can view a stations public record and write up a report about what you find there – publish it in the local paper and spread the word about how the station is serving your community. 3) Fight a License Renewal: use that info to petition the FCC to deny a station its license to broadcast. 4) In-district Meeting: Then meet with your policy maker and ask them to hold these stations accountable to serve the local community.
You can find tips and tricks on how to put a campaign like this together at www.freepress.net or www.stopbigmedia.com.
More to come soon…
Josh Stearns Free Press/Stop Big Media/ Save the Internet
Stephanie: Liveblogging the Scholar Leader Session
Hi everyone - I'm Stephanie, a grad student at Miami University of Ohio and a member of the Conference Planing committee. I'm liveblogging a workshop session facilitated by two of my students, John and Chase.
10:27 - Great job, John and Chase!
10:25 - John and Chase wrap up the session by having the group share emails. Together, we decide to create a Facebook group to continue the conversation beyond the conference. A few people stick around to ask specific questions about the program.
10:20 - Participants have begun to share different challenges and concerns that come up with student-directed communities, including awareness of diversity issues and the needs of students of colour, and building connections with other student groups that have similar goals.
10:15 - A concern for each 'corridor' has been the issue of bathrooms - should they be separate for men and women, or shared? One student shares the concept of the 'E' system - an 'E' is velcroed to the door of the bathroom, meaning Everyone can enter. If a student who is using the bathroom would prefer that only Men or Women enter while they're inside, they can turn the E 90 degrees to the left or the right to become an M or W. I think many student-directed communities wrestle with the issue of sharing bathrooms, and this seems like an innovative solution...
10:10 - In the simulated community meeting, the group is sharing their newly-created corridor policies with one another. They are also sharing their ideas for service and engagement projects; I get the sense that this opportunity to share different service models is particularly interesting for the students.
10:00 - The group has come back together, and John is presenting the model he developed - the 'engagement IMPACT model' that represents the different levels of engagement for scholar leader. The first level is engagement within the scholar leader community; the second is engagement on campus; and the third is engagment in the community. As John points out, engagement with the college and community helps deepen the sense of community and the learning outcomes within Scholar Leader.
9:55 - The participants are identifying some of the challenges of the scholar leader model - in particular, the lack of continuity from year to year in a one-year residence program. They are wrestling with the conversation of how to maintain the best aspects of the culture and having continuity from year to year, while still allowing each group the autonomy to having their own identity
9:50 - The conversation has shifted, and participatns are taking the opportunity to ask questions about the scholar-leader model. One member of the group asks how the community unity is maintained when some of the students have scholarships and some don't, so they have different levels of motivation to participate?
9:35 - Students are now grouped with people who have similarly coloured keys, to have corridor meetings. In Scholar Leader, students are responsible for developing corridor policies, but also for creating programming as a corridor. Just as in the real-life scholar leader, a period of silence is eventually broken by a tentative suggestion to hold a service project twice a month, which gives way to a tumble of ideas.
9:30 - The roommate meetings are concluded, the sound issue is fixed, and we head back into the workshop space.
9:16 - Oops! Suddenly, our workshop room is filled with music from the DVD playing next door. Chase ushers the group outside, and the roommate meetings continue in the hallway. As in Scholar Leader, students work together to decide the policies that will be in place in their shared room for the year.
9:15 - In order to teach people about their living learning community, John and Chase are conducting the workshop as a simulation of the first day in the community. Chase has handed out colourful keys to the participants, to 'match' them with roommates and corridor mates.
9:10 - Students are still coming in, so we've switched to a go-around for the introduction. The participants are a mixture of students, RAs, and professional staff who direct volunteer or residence hall programs. There is even a staff member from a residential high school for gifted and talented students.
9:05 - Great! There is a good turnout for the workshop, about 10 students. Chase is introducing them to one another with her usual boundless energy.
10:27 - Great job, John and Chase!
10:25 - John and Chase wrap up the session by having the group share emails. Together, we decide to create a Facebook group to continue the conversation beyond the conference. A few people stick around to ask specific questions about the program.
10:20 - Participants have begun to share different challenges and concerns that come up with student-directed communities, including awareness of diversity issues and the needs of students of colour, and building connections with other student groups that have similar goals.
10:15 - A concern for each 'corridor' has been the issue of bathrooms - should they be separate for men and women, or shared? One student shares the concept of the 'E' system - an 'E' is velcroed to the door of the bathroom, meaning Everyone can enter. If a student who is using the bathroom would prefer that only Men or Women enter while they're inside, they can turn the E 90 degrees to the left or the right to become an M or W. I think many student-directed communities wrestle with the issue of sharing bathrooms, and this seems like an innovative solution...
10:10 - In the simulated community meeting, the group is sharing their newly-created corridor policies with one another. They are also sharing their ideas for service and engagement projects; I get the sense that this opportunity to share different service models is particularly interesting for the students.
10:00 - The group has come back together, and John is presenting the model he developed - the 'engagement IMPACT model' that represents the different levels of engagement for scholar leader. The first level is engagement within the scholar leader community; the second is engagement on campus; and the third is engagment in the community. As John points out, engagement with the college and community helps deepen the sense of community and the learning outcomes within Scholar Leader.
9:55 - The participants are identifying some of the challenges of the scholar leader model - in particular, the lack of continuity from year to year in a one-year residence program. They are wrestling with the conversation of how to maintain the best aspects of the culture and having continuity from year to year, while still allowing each group the autonomy to having their own identity
9:50 - The conversation has shifted, and participatns are taking the opportunity to ask questions about the scholar-leader model. One member of the group asks how the community unity is maintained when some of the students have scholarships and some don't, so they have different levels of motivation to participate?
9:35 - Students are now grouped with people who have similarly coloured keys, to have corridor meetings. In Scholar Leader, students are responsible for developing corridor policies, but also for creating programming as a corridor. Just as in the real-life scholar leader, a period of silence is eventually broken by a tentative suggestion to hold a service project twice a month, which gives way to a tumble of ideas.
9:30 - The roommate meetings are concluded, the sound issue is fixed, and we head back into the workshop space.
9:16 - Oops! Suddenly, our workshop room is filled with music from the DVD playing next door. Chase ushers the group outside, and the roommate meetings continue in the hallway. As in Scholar Leader, students work together to decide the policies that will be in place in their shared room for the year.
9:15 - In order to teach people about their living learning community, John and Chase are conducting the workshop as a simulation of the first day in the community. Chase has handed out colourful keys to the participants, to 'match' them with roommates and corridor mates.
9:10 - Students are still coming in, so we've switched to a go-around for the introduction. The participants are a mixture of students, RAs, and professional staff who direct volunteer or residence hall programs. There is even a staff member from a residential high school for gifted and talented students.
9:05 - Great! There is a good turnout for the workshop, about 10 students. Chase is introducing them to one another with her usual boundless energy.
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