suhridk's blog

I think we all realize that the MF SSP projects could do with a "shot in the arm". We realized that our SSP's have a much greater potential to create social change. Prior to the symposium some of us at Proj.SSP were seriously thinking about ways in which we can improve MF SSP's. Of course DU 2008 was a great opportunity to do that.

As part of the symposium, three SSP activities were available for all the participants to get a chance to reach out to the local community. One option was volunteering at the Audobon Nature Institute. The other options available were volunteering to build a home in hurricane affected areas - in combination with Habitat for Humanity. The third option was something called the Gentilly Community Outreach project. 

As part of the symposium, three SSP activities were available for all the participants to get a chance to reach out to the local community. One option was volunteering at the Audobon Nature Institute. The other options available were volunteering to build a home in hurricane affected areas - in combination with Habitat for Humanity. The third option was something called the Gentilly Community Outreach project. 

We had the all the JF's presenting the work they had done as part of the different workgroups that they were part of prior coming to the symposium. The focus of the workgroups now is centred on the theme of the symposium. Given that the theme of this symposium is Go Green, all of the workgroups were focused on themes relating to Environment and Climate Change. They covered themes ranging from consumption habits, energy spending, relation between ecology and psychology, effects of climate change on health, disasters and even on how to build a green home.

Ever happened to you that you couldnt easily distinguish faces easily ? Especially when the faces are from another culture other than yours ? Or to put in another way around, you can more easily distinguish faces from the people with the same cultural background as you are ? Turns out that this is a psychological topic called Own-Race bias. Johanna Stahl, SF from FSU introduced this topic to some of us today.

As the tradition is in every symposium, each campus (other than the host campus) hosts the cultural presentation showcasing a bit of their countries culture to everyone else.

Some of the DU fellows conducted all of us around for a Dillard University campus tour. DU has a beautiful campus ! All the buildings are painted in white and there are vast stretches of green everywhere. Here are some pictures that I took while walking around on campus:

Welcome to the MF 2008 symposium blog. Im Suhrid, a Senior Fellow from the 2004 batch. Me and some of the others are going to be using the drupal site to post our perceptions of the daily happenings at the symposium. ( All our blogs will be available on the consolidated location http://drupal.meltonfoundation.org/blog/symposium ).So go ahead and follow this blog to know what is happening at the DU symposium !