October 11, 2012
Fall 2012 is off to a wonderful start! Over the summer Spectrum Center has made a lot of changes. We have decided to take make volunteering a more active experience for students. To accomplish this, we are piloting a new organizational structure and volunteer team system. There are 3 areas which cover 7 volunteer teams. The Educational Outreach program houses our Video Team, Social Media Team, My Voice Team, and Facilitation Team. The Collaborative Learning program houses our Riot Youth Team, Guidance, Perspective, & Support (GPS) Team. The Community Engagement program houses our Campus Connection Team. Each team is overseen by a Team Lead (work-study or internship positions for students), and each program area is led by a Coordinator (full-time staff positions).
This semester started with a lot of events! Spectrum Center was present at Welcome Week events such as Residence Hall Resource Fairs, Incoming Student Welcome Events, Escapade, Festifall, Taste of Culture, Gayze Craze, etc. In our first weeks we signed up over 120 people for our newsletter, and are starting the semester with almost 70 student volunteers!
This September, we also participated in the Ann Arbor AIDS Walk. Our team earned over $800 online and at the walk, to contribute to over $13,000 earned for the Ann Arbor walk. All proceeds go toward HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and care services in Michigan.
Make sure to keep up with Spectrum Center facebook, twitter, and blog updates to see what our teams are up to! For example, the Campus Connection Team will be blogging about their experiences on the Queer@umich blog!