September 9, 2013 | By Spectrum Center staff
Jackie is our Director, Will is our Associate Director, Chloé is our Community Engagement Coordinator, and Ariana is our Educational Outreach Coordinator. They are pictured above, from left to right: Jackie, Will, Chloé, Ariana.
Jackie: This past summer I spent much time in planning, goal setting and evaluating the future of both the Spectrum Center and Leadership Education within Student life. While there is always work to be done, the pace changes and it always me to reflect, catch up and think forward. I also had the chance to go on a cruise with my partner, Jeanine and her parents to Alaska--so beautiful, it is the last frontier, in addition to taking a week to hang out at a nice resort in Orlando with Harry Potter. We also got a new puppy, Sunshine, who is as cute and ornery as could be and who also has become the new mascot of the Spectrum Center.
Will: We had a great time this summer getting ready for the 2013-2014 academic year. This year we invited all of our graduate interns to come in early August and get to know the center before starting classes. This provided a great opportunity throughout August to get-to-know each other and develop as a team before the start of the year. I am excited to welcome the Growing Allies Program into the Spectrum Center. Our Education and Training team looks forward to bringing Growing Allies workshops to students, staff, and faculty across the University. I want to extend a big welcome to the first ever residents of the Gender Inclusive Living Experience, housed in East Quad. Many students have worked for years to grow our gender inclusive living opportunities and we would not be where we are today without all of their hard work and dedication. We love visitors in the center, so stop by, have lunch, check out the library and meet someone new. See you soon.
Chloé: Over the summer we did a lot of our planning, both as a unit (Spectrum Center), and as a broader division (Student Life). One of my favorite planning meetings was the Collective Impact meeting, where all of the units in Student Life (e.g. MESA, Spectrum Center, CAPS, Ginsberg Center, UMHS, etc.), got together to talk about how we can work together this coming year to see some real collaborative change on campus. The planning time this semester also gave me time to work on planning events for the Fall semester, as well as strategizing about some better ways to reach out to student organizations.
Ariana: It was another wildly productive summer for the educational outreach team as we completed our work on new evaluation and assessment tools and began to develop our much-anticipated Ally Training 2.0. This training will focus on organizational allyhood as a next step in the continual process of doing ally work. At the end of July we said goodbye to Shannon Bacon, our School of Social Work Intern for the past year, without whom none of these amazing developments would have been possible! Shannon will be continuing her amazing work in Fargo, North Dakota teaching an entry-level Social Work course at a local college, and she also has a position at a nursing home. Finally, in August we welcomed two new graduate students who will be joining our fabulous educational outreach team: Jean Hardy and Tynishia Walker! Jean is a student in the School of Information focusing on a mixture of archives & records management and social computing and will be managing the My Voice Program and the administration of our workshops and trainings. Tynishia is a student in the School of Social Work focusing on Community Organizing and will be assisting with educational curriculum development as well as workshop facilitation. We are excited to kick off the 2013-2014 school year feeling refreshed, motivated, and ready to take on any task that comes our way!