[middmedia 75f01970aa9b6cab8d92cf9ceed4050b hcavanagh justalks_640x360.mp4 width:480 height:270]

Events:

Friday, January 18th at 7pm: Keynote Address                                                         JusTalks: Saturday, January 19th, 2013

JusTalks is a forum dedicated to communication, thoughtful personal discourse, self-analysis, and leaning into discomfort. The name “JusTalks” comes from our commitment to engage in conversation – to talk – in a way that we believe is socially “just,” while also alluding to the fact that the requirement to engage such important ideas is “just” talking about them.

Our goal is to foster dialogue about issues that are important to us that are not currently represented in the Middlebury curriculum, mainly identity and diversity issues, that we believe should be an integral part of Middlebury’s liberal arts education. We believe that nobody should graduate from Middlebury without being given the opportunity to explore, deconstruct and reflect on societal and personal identity issues such as race, gender, sexual orientation, class, ability and personal history, not as a reactionary response to current events but as a preemptive way to strengthen our community and to prepare students to “participate fully in a vibrant and diverse academic community” and “learn to engage the world” as is stated  in our Mission statement.

We want to create a forum during J-Term (“JusTalks”) designed specifically for students in their first J-Term to engage each other in two or three afternoon events in a safe, supportive forum in which they can learn from one another, from the activities that will be presented and from the professionals we will bring in to spearhead this initiative and facilitate the talks.

We believe doing this in J-term represents an ideal time for reflection, both for first-years and the campus community as a whole, as well as the most practical time to ensure appropriate scheduling of athletic, academic and work commitments.

We, 20+ students from all over campus, have presented our idea of JusTalks to many campus organizations, interest houses, sports teams, and faculty and staff departments, in order to seek endorsement of the idea, as well as feedback on what kinds of themes and facilitators need be included in the final product. We are not interested in independently planning an event, but instead seeking feedback from every corner of this campus, in order to plan a series of conversations that best reflects the interests and needs of this community.And now we are using that feedback and working with an outside group to create a curriculum that best fits our community. We will continue to seek feedback during our process and will reach out to the campus again in the fall semester.