By Basil Gates
Students and faculty at Bluffton University discovered how much they have in common despite their different social groups in an interactive presentation from Peace Club titled “The Things We Share.” Trin Borgman, a sophomore double major in social work and psychology, hosted the session as part of Civic Engagement Day March 29.
“Bluffton is very cliquey. All the students stay separated in their own small groups,” Borgman said. “The point of this presentation is to show that despite all of our social cliques and groups, we share a lot of things in common.”
The presentation took place on Copeland court in Sommer Center, with a turn-out of around 30 students and faculty.
There were posters scattered around the gym with labels pertaining to different sports, different majors, and different clubs. Participants were told to stand by the label they most strongly associated with, listen to every prompt, and to step forward if the prompt applied to them.
“The psychology professor that was here last year, Deanna, showed us a video in social psychology of this exact presentation being done in Denmark,” Borgman said.
“Peace Club wanted to hold a [similar] event at some point, but we didn’t have time for it,” Borgman said. “Then Cierra, the Peace Club president, suggested to me “why don’t you do it for Civic Engagement day?” And I thought it was a great idea.”
Prompts stated at the event ranged between “my favorite color is blue,” or “I prefer dogs over cats,” to more personal statements, such as “I have experienced a hate crime.” Most participants appeared to respond, walking forward or backwards for each statement.
There were also a couple prompts that caught the participants off guard, however, like the statement, “I have had sex in the past week.” Only a few people responded to such prompts.
Participants were reminded throughout the activity that they did not have to answer every question if they felt uncomfortable doing so.
Once the activity was finished, Borgman guided all the attendees to sit back on the bleachers to share their thoughts.
Darryl Nester, a mathematics professor, was one of the few faculty members that attended the event. He said, although he wished more people attended, he found the presentation to be interesting and ambitious nonetheless.
“It would be an interesting thing to try with a larger group, since there were a lot of little sub categories that weren’t represented, which is natural in a situation like this,” Nester said.
“But without being too threatening, I think it was a chance to disclose some things—with being given the option to not disclose other things—and recognize that commonality we have.”
Nester also said the presentation made him do a lot of self-reflection.
“The most revealing thing for me was the extent that I had to think about whether I fell into a particular category, and I wasn’t entirely sure,” Nester said. “Sometimes, I made the decision based off of how I wanted be seen, or how I wanted to see myself.”
Peace Club is a student organization focused on advocacy, raising awareness of social issues, and organizing and participating in events to combat said issues. The club meets on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in The Lion and Lamb.
Editor’s note: This article was produced as part of an assignment for MED 225 Writing for the Media.
