The Max Shacknai COVE turned lunchtime into engagement time in Fiscal Year ’13. A series of brown-bag lunches, open to all students, staff, and faculty, helped volunteer teams raise awareness on specific issues related to their work in the community.
This year, the COVE hosted brown bags on a wide array of topics pertinent to the local and national community and highlighted social issues ranging from public health to social responsibility to community advocacy.
In partnership with Career Services, COVE lunches also offered students the opportunity to meet with people who work in “common good” fields such as not-for-profit management, education, public service, the environment, and politics through the Doing Well by Doing Good luncheon series. Here’s a list of participants:
- Jamie Bergeron, a Colgate staffer, spoke about her summer experience working at G.R.O.W.E.R.S., Inc. — an urban greenhouse offering a therapeutic environment for people with developmental and physical disabilities
- Disaster Response Team (DiRT) discussed and compared and aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Isaac, including how preparation efforts were revamped after Hurricane Katrina and the differences between community and national response that both storms produced
- Marvin Vilma spoke about his internship with the Breakthrough Collaborative, focused on closing the educational achievement gap and making opportunities available to underserved students
- Psychology Professor Jun Yoshino and Erin Bortel from the AIDS Community Center in Syracuse spoke on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in our communities and how the different policies of our presidential candidates may affect the HIV/AIDS international and domestic community
- Jodee Osborne from Community Action Partnership in Morrisville spoke about local poverty issues in Madison County
- Sociology Professor Margaret Wehrer, Dr. Susan Marafino from the Hamilton Chiropractic Center, and Lily Kim ’15 all discussed their previous experiences of community volunteer work in Haiti
- A student panel discussed the spring alternative break trip to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, SD, sharing their personal experiences of their time on the reservation
- Medical staff from the Oneida Healthcare Center walked participants through a typical sexual assault nurse exam (SANE), highlighting their role in preserving the dignity of a sexual assault victim