Nathan discusses the role of diversity on campus and how being part of the college community encourages people to build relationships with people of different backgrounds. People often associate more with people with similar interests as them, but when they are emersed into a new culture they must be open to those who are different from them. Nathan observes the interaction between friends of different ethnicities and beliefs by seeing who they choose to eat dinner with.
Interspersed: To diversify with something placed or scattered at intervals
Provocative: Tending or serving to provoke; inciting, stimulating, irritating, or vexing
Surmised: To think or infer without certain or strong evidence; conjecture; guess.
Plethora: Overabundance; excess
Proliferation: A rapid and often excessive spread or increase
Vying: Competing; contending
Apathy: Lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.
Amalgam: A mixture or combination
Flatulent: Having unsupported pretensions; inflated and empty; pompous; turgid
Balking: To stop, as at an obstacle, and refuse to proceed or to do something specified
Discussion Leader By, Mark Van Den Broeke
1) Can you relate to the scenarios she had to on her Welcome Week? Which ones?
I could relate to the scenarios because I had to go to welcome week too. I have teachers that always wait and are persistent, practically like pulling teeth, for someone to answer the questions. Although at UW-Eau Claire, we were not forced to take a class during welcome week, but it is mandatory to have a FYE class.
2) What organization or club do you belong to? If there were none, which ones would you like to join in the future?
The book talked about joining a fraternity or sorority and I always considered joining one but didn’t because of the examples in the book. The large amount of money it costs and the time it takes up are the factors why I didn’t join. I didn’t know that one in ten people actually join a Greek organization and much more likely to report the highest level of satisfaction with campus life.
3) What do you enjoy about dorm life? And what don’t you enjoy?
I enjoy the communal bathrooms, unlike what the book says, because it makes people get out their room. I feel like I wouldn’t have a chance to talk to a lot of people if I didn’t see them just walking to the bathroom, not necessarily in the bathroom. I don’t enjoy the cramped living space and having to deal with a roommate in the same room because I don’t have the same sleeping schedule as my roommate.
4) Do you think we need more of a diverse community at UW-Eau Claire?
UW-Eau Claire is a very low diverse community. For some reason, the school decides to put most of the diverse students from other countries in their own separate dorm at the bottom of the hill. It doesn’t let the other students socialize with them foreign kids, so I think something needs to change and scatter more of the students.
Summary by, Emma Carlson
Rebekah Nathan opens up the chapter by describing welcome week and her ideas about “community” meant at AnyU. She states that youth, pop culture, and getting a degree are the ties that bind together a public state university “community”. Another way to build this “community” was through elective involvement; the problem with this, however, is the lack of participation by most students because of the growing importance of individuality in this “community”. This is due to the student’s busy schedules and resources in the name of individualism, spontaneity, freedom, and choice. She goes on describe the personal interviews she conducted and stated how every students view on community is different, which could explain the unclear definition on what “community” means at a public state university. Most of the students’ communities were based on their small groups of friends that they can relate to well. This ego-centered network helped Rebekah grasp a better understanding of her peers and past students.
In this section the author described what community is at a public state university through personal interviews and observations. These two allowed her to make unbiased remarks and add to the clarity of her writing. The interviews added to the “personal” feeling of the piece and gave it a touch of reality for me as a student. Her observations were very in depth and it was easy to create a picture while reading. Overall Rebekah’s use of descriptions helped create the vision of what community means to the students at AnyU.
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