Engaging Experiences

Activities in the Finding Your Voice Learning Community will empower you to turn values into action and to transform your communities for the better.

As a student in this community, you will participate in intensive activities throughout the academic year such as:

• Fall Semester Career Exploration – Students will meet virtually with activists, politicians, attorneys, social workers, mental health workers, and others to hear their firsthand experience of working in fields related to social justice, with Q&A sessions about the real-world aspects of jobs related to students’ majors and interests.
  
  
• Fall Semester Collaborations – The Learning Community is planning collaborations with other campus groups around topics of mutual interest, including cultural appropriation, sex ed, dis/ability, mental health, protesting and counter-protesting tactics, and cosplay/gender identity.
  
  
• Spring Session Campus Engagement – During the Spring semester, we will partner with existing initiatives related to diversity and social justice on campus.  These initiatives include the Black and Latinx Issues Conferences, the Women of Color Leadership Summit, and workshops organized by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society.
  
  
• Spring Social Justice Day Trip - During the Spring semester, we will take a field trip to a nearby city to learn more about social justice.

Examples of past activities:

• Outreach Projects – Students chose themes (e.g., natural hair, body-shaming, consent, police brutality, and gender identity), then designed and created buttons, stickers, and magnets, along with informational flyers, to sell at a low cost to the campus community to help raise awareness and promote change.
  
  
• Meeting with University Speakers – Learning Community students have been invited to participate in small-group activities with nationally renowned speakers brought to campus for University events. These speakers/scholars include Melissa Harris-Perry and Mona Hanna-Attisha.
  
  
• Food Accessibility Workshop – Students participated in a virtual workshop led by a Chicago activist on food access, accessibility, and insecurity, including evaluating their local grocery stores for accessibility issues.
  
  
• Labor Day Weekend Field Trip to Detroit - Students and Cultural & Critical studies faculty went on a trip exploring Detroit’s social justice and civil rights history, learning from activists working in the city and considering the relationships between labor history and racial inequality.
  
  
• Social Justice Dinners - Students met with local leaders including community activists, university administrators, and faculty. They learned about what’s going on campus and in town, where to find resources, and how others have found ways to activate social change.
  
  
• And more!