Update from Class on 10/25/16

As we gear up for today’s class, we should recap what we’ve been up to in the last week.

In our last class, we discussed a number of things from the direction of the overall Periclean Program to our plans for the January Conference and beyond.

In the last Periclean Steering Committee meeting, the future of the program and the distinction between it being a social and an academic organization were discussed. As of this year, you are no longer allowed to participate as a Periclean Scholar without taking the course for credit. In general, the program is being structured to be more academic, with more structured syllabi and grading criteria. We discussed this at length, citing both the pros and cons. For many of us, these new criteria posed problems, as we are already taking 18 credit hours, and registering for the class would require us to pay for the overloaded courses. However, we do understand that this is the first step towards having the program recognized as a greater scholars program on campus with the all the funding and administrative opportunities that entails.

In planning for the Voices of Sustainability Conference set for January 23rd-25th, 2017, we’ve decided to cover the costs of travel for students through travel stipends, which will be a large part of our budget. There’s been some back and forth between the University of Namibia and us on what our overall budget is going to be, so much of the discussion is still up in the air. Our latest response has been to ask them to cover the cost of housing, among other things – we are hopeful that their accommodations will help us to make the conference as successful as we are envisioning it! As for programming, we’ve decided to split up into research groups, with those of us that are going presenting at the conference. As of right now, the topics for research are:

  • The most effective diet for HIV/AIDS
  • The effect of knowing where your food comes from
  • An analysis of the Alamance County food desert
  • Sustainability of food aid programs
  • Psychological effects of food insecurity
  • Ethics of aid
  • Research involved in The Omega Project documentary

Our partnership with the Burlington Housing Authority has been going wonderfully, with last week’s lesson including painting pumpkins! We plan to continue our partnership with them into the next semester, and possibly incorporate them into our spring semester local project.

Our next Cookies To Go Go fundraiser is scheduled for Wednesday, November 9th! Our last one was a huge success, raising around $600 in a single night. With plans to increase awareness of the event and improved planning, we hope to raise even more.

 

That’s it! Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more updates on the Class of 2017’s progress.

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