I have had an amazing year as the Outreach Graduate Assistant, and look forward to returning next year as well! This past fall, I was looking forward to beginning my Outreach journey, and somehow, the Outreach Team managed to exceed my expectations, which were pretty high. There were so many things I loved doing with the Outreach Team this year. However, if I talked about all of them, this post would be way too long. Instead, I’m going to choose a few of my favorite events from this year to tell you about.
I quickly realized I love doing Outreach so much because we’re always celebrating something. Whether it’s a collaboration with another department, the recruitment process for finding new UCWbL tutors, or an entire month devoted to poetry, Outreach always finds a way to make every event feel like a reason to celebrate.
Here were my favorite things to celebrate this year!
National Day on Writing
The National Day on Writing fell on October 20, 2017. To celebrate this holiday, the Outreach Team set up a table in the Student Center to ask passersby for their favorite writing tips. Because of Core Belief #1, “Anyone who writes anything is a writer,” we believed that everyone we came into contact with would have something valuable to share. We got so many wonderful writing tips, which we tacked up on the bulletin board outside the Lincoln Park UCWbL, serving as writing inspiration for everyone who walks by.
The Peer Tutor & Mentor Summit
A week later, we were moving on to our biggest event of the year: the Peer Tutor and Mentor Summit! At this event, tutors and mentors from different departments across the university came together to host round robin discussions and share tutoring tips. I wrote a more in-depth post about the summit back in autumn quarter, so I won’t go into too much detail here. What I will say, though, was Chartwells outdid themselves with those veggie fajitas we had for lunch.
Fun with Public Speaking
In winter quarter, the Outreach Team hosted an inservice about public speaking. Because I firmly believe public speaking can be fun, we titled the presentation “Fun with Public Speaking.” My goal in initiating this inservice was to show students—some of whom may feel afraid, stressed, or bored by public speaking—that talking in front of a crowd can be fun, and it’s a valuable skill to have. The Outreach Team collaborated to write up some lighthearted things for participants to use during their speeches. Overall, everyone had a great time during the inservice. I was happy to see so many people having a positive public speaking experience.
UCWbLina
In a former Outreach blog-post, I conducted an interview with UCWbLina, the gnome on staff. UCWbLina lives in the Lincoln Park UCWbL, where she tutors students, alumni, and fellow gnomes on everything from research papers, to APA style, to Gnomeology. “I’m a nice gnome and a good writer,” says UCWbLina.
National Poetry Month
Again, this is another event I’ve written a more extensive blog-post on. However, it was still important enough to make my list! Outreach got to host a month-long celebration of poetry. The responses we got from students around the university demonstrated poetry is for everyone—we see poetry in music, novels, and all around us. Plus, the bulletin board looked AMAZING for the month of April!
Finals Week Positivity
Right now, the Outreach Team is preparing for finals week by spreading positive vibes! On the bulletin board outside the Lincoln Park UCWbL, we’ve written some positive thoughts on index cards, which we’ve decorated with stickers and washi tape. We also have a pocket of blank cards on the bulletin board so you can write your own positive thoughts to share, take your positive thought with you, or take a positive thought off of the board and carry it with you. The choice is yours!
We accomplished so many amazing things this year! I have to give a shoutout to Jen Finstrom, who is consistently so positive and friendly, setting the tone of what Outreach is all about. I also want to give a shoutout to my fellow team members: Katie Olsen, Rebecca Reynoso, Kaitlyn Madden, Marin Scott, Charlotte Byrd, Kate Meulemans, Andra Roventa, Bella Jorgensen, and Giovanna Lenski. You guys are all amazing!
Happy writing!