Staffers take break from daily routines to watch ‘history in the making’
By Rachel Cromidas
CHICAGO — “I’ve got to go—I’ll call you later,” Stella Manns said, hanging up the phone at the front desk of Snell-Hitchcock Hall.
“That was another desk clerk, from Maclean. We didn’t want to talk too much, we don’t want to even take our eyes off it for a minute.”
Like students, faculty, and staff all over campus, Manns and dozens of other housing and dining staff members took a few moments Tuesday morning from their jobs checking ID cards, preparing food, and keeping house. Whatever attention could be spared went to dormitory televisions and desk computers showing the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
“I’m speechless,” Manns said, splitting her attention between the Channel 9 news and the students running through the dormitory front door. “I knew one day this would happen, but I never thought I would live to see it.”
Manns, a resident of the Chatham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, has been working for the University for 31 years. She started out as a cashier in Hutchinson Commons, and later at International House, before joining the housing staff.
“They just went to church,” she said, tracking the Obamas on television. “There goes Al Gore, and his wife, and [George] Herbert Walker Bush. Did you know he walked with a cane? Barbara looks good.”
“I’m going to watch the inauguration the whole time,” she added. “And it won’t interfere with my work. It’s history in the making.”
Chicago Studies is a project of the College in partnership with the University Community Service Center. Chicago Studies is funded in part by the Women's Board. © 2008 The University of Chicago
Showing posts with label Inauguration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inauguration. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
I'm on NYTimes.com!
Um, yes, self-explanatory title.
Please click here!
UPDATE: See if you can find the other photo I submitted.
Please click here!
UPDATE: See if you can find the other photo I submitted.
Volunteer’s tale: Day of Service
Check it out! Student journalists (like me) will be giving you coverage all day of Inauguration events at the Chicago Studies webpage.
Here's my first piece:
CHICAGO — Rev. C.T. Vivian wanted the crowd to know about a “mighty force” that has the power to decide what congressmen will do, a force that is able build more houses than any architect.
“It’s not God,” the Baptist minister and friend to Martin Luther King Jr. said in a speech over MLK Weekend.
And it isn’t Barack Obama either, he said. “Obama wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for this mighty force. He wouldn’t have even been a senator.”
Vivian was talking about the spirit of volunteerism—the same force that assembled hundreds of volunteers, including 120 from the University of Chicago, at the United Center at 8:30 on Saturday morning, to prepare for a day of civic engagement through service.
Chicago Cares, a non-profit group that organizes volunteer projects throughout Chicago, organized the Jan. 17 Day of Service in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Chicago Cares also arranged for Vivian, a champion of King’s message of non-violent action, to speak to volunteers the morning of the service project.
Just as Chicago Cares asked volunteers across the city to set aside time for community service, Brooke Fallon, a fourth-year in the College, asked University students to set aside their textbooks and spend the day painting classrooms and building bookshelves at nearby Fiske Elementary School.
“I am really impressed with the fact that so many students care enough about the community to take a full day out of their schedule, wake up early and come do something like this,” said Fallon, the University’s Day of Service coordinator. “The library isn’t going anywhere.”
Fiske, a prekindergarten through eighth-grade school located at the corner of 62nd Street and Ingleside Avenue, is just blocks away from campus and several dorms. But it may as well have been in a different world for the some University’s volunteers making their first foray into Woodlawn, a high-poverty neighborhood with historically tenuous University relations.
For fourth-year Stephan Skepnek, the Day of Service provided the perfect opportunity to spend his day outside of Hyde Park, and away from students’ usual off-campus haunts.
“One of my biggest regrets after having spent the last four years in Chicago is that I don’t know most of the city. It’s just so easy, once you get comfortable in Hyde Park and develop a close group of friends, to become insulated. But I think getting out into the city and exploring is really a part of what being a college student is,” he said.
Skepnek attended the Day of Service with his fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon.
Though the Day of Service honors King’s memory, Skepneck had President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration at the front of his mind. It was hard not to—several classroom walls featured cut-out news articles about Obama and a collection of student essays titled “If I Were President…”
“[Obama] inspired a lot of youth to really get proactive, so hopefully he can just keep it going,” Skepnek said. “I didn’t begin volunteering because of Obama, but I think he has gotten me to step back and think about my relationship to the community.”
Chicago Studies is a project of the College in partnership with the University Community Service Center. Chicago Studies is funded in part by the Women's Board. © 2008 The University of Chicago
Here's my first piece:
CHICAGO — Rev. C.T. Vivian wanted the crowd to know about a “mighty force” that has the power to decide what congressmen will do, a force that is able build more houses than any architect.
“It’s not God,” the Baptist minister and friend to Martin Luther King Jr. said in a speech over MLK Weekend.
And it isn’t Barack Obama either, he said. “Obama wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for this mighty force. He wouldn’t have even been a senator.”
Vivian was talking about the spirit of volunteerism—the same force that assembled hundreds of volunteers, including 120 from the University of Chicago, at the United Center at 8:30 on Saturday morning, to prepare for a day of civic engagement through service.
Chicago Cares, a non-profit group that organizes volunteer projects throughout Chicago, organized the Jan. 17 Day of Service in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Chicago Cares also arranged for Vivian, a champion of King’s message of non-violent action, to speak to volunteers the morning of the service project.
Just as Chicago Cares asked volunteers across the city to set aside time for community service, Brooke Fallon, a fourth-year in the College, asked University students to set aside their textbooks and spend the day painting classrooms and building bookshelves at nearby Fiske Elementary School.
“I am really impressed with the fact that so many students care enough about the community to take a full day out of their schedule, wake up early and come do something like this,” said Fallon, the University’s Day of Service coordinator. “The library isn’t going anywhere.”
Fiske, a prekindergarten through eighth-grade school located at the corner of 62nd Street and Ingleside Avenue, is just blocks away from campus and several dorms. But it may as well have been in a different world for the some University’s volunteers making their first foray into Woodlawn, a high-poverty neighborhood with historically tenuous University relations.
For fourth-year Stephan Skepnek, the Day of Service provided the perfect opportunity to spend his day outside of Hyde Park, and away from students’ usual off-campus haunts.
“One of my biggest regrets after having spent the last four years in Chicago is that I don’t know most of the city. It’s just so easy, once you get comfortable in Hyde Park and develop a close group of friends, to become insulated. But I think getting out into the city and exploring is really a part of what being a college student is,” he said.
Skepnek attended the Day of Service with his fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon.
Though the Day of Service honors King’s memory, Skepneck had President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration at the front of his mind. It was hard not to—several classroom walls featured cut-out news articles about Obama and a collection of student essays titled “If I Were President…”
“[Obama] inspired a lot of youth to really get proactive, so hopefully he can just keep it going,” Skepnek said. “I didn’t begin volunteering because of Obama, but I think he has gotten me to step back and think about my relationship to the community.”
Chicago Studies is a project of the College in partnership with the University Community Service Center. Chicago Studies is funded in part by the Women's Board. © 2008 The University of Chicago
Friday, January 16, 2009
Saddlebacking all the way to D.C.
My favorite advice columnist and queer Dan Savage recently proposed another sex-act-naming contest, this time to commemorate the word "Saddleback." As both the name of the Reverend Rick Warren's church and a term just too suggestive to pass up, Dan's seven reader-suggested definitions for saddlebacking can be found here. Go vote for your favorite.
I'm not sure how I'm voting yet (though leaning towards 5), but these are my thoughts on the choices:
(1) I agree with Dan; "sex" should by default suggest the use of a condom in today's speech, and doesn't need another term.
(2) This suggestion only half makes sense to me; Obviously in a consenual relationship, having "submissive/masochistic tendencies" is not dark or nefarious, and using the term to apply to any kind of unreciprocal sex act wrongly implies that two people can't at the same time enjoy something like oral sex. I think Dan knows better than to offer this suggestion up to readers. However, I do like the example of the word in action: 'I don't know why Obama is letting Rick Warren saddleback him into presiding over his inauguration.'" Perhaps tweak this definition a little to describe the act of intentionally hijacking a sex act to suit your own fantasies while disregarding your partner?
(3) Aside from the gory description, I like how this suggestion references "barebacking," a term already in use.
(4) "To saddleback is to rail against gay sex in public while secretly indulging in the same in private. Ted Haggard? Total saddlebacker. Larry Craig? Saddlebacker. Rick Warren? Probably a saddlebacker." Ha ha ha. It's funny now, but I'm not picking this one because I think the joke will get old too fast.
(5) Yes! This one looks like the most appropriate choice so far because it directly speaks to the hypocritical, misinformed understanding of sex someone who goes through Rick Warren's idea of "sex-ed" would have.
(6) Like number 3, I think it works, but I think Dan should be looking for something more.
(7) Rick Warren probably loves the idea of "saddlebacking" as it is defined in this choice. That's reason enough not to pick it.
What do you think?
I'm not sure how I'm voting yet (though leaning towards 5), but these are my thoughts on the choices:
(1) I agree with Dan; "sex" should by default suggest the use of a condom in today's speech, and doesn't need another term.
(2) This suggestion only half makes sense to me; Obviously in a consenual relationship, having "submissive/masochistic tendencies" is not dark or nefarious, and using the term to apply to any kind of unreciprocal sex act wrongly implies that two people can't at the same time enjoy something like oral sex. I think Dan knows better than to offer this suggestion up to readers. However, I do like the example of the word in action: 'I don't know why Obama is letting Rick Warren saddleback him into presiding over his inauguration.'" Perhaps tweak this definition a little to describe the act of intentionally hijacking a sex act to suit your own fantasies while disregarding your partner?
(3) Aside from the gory description, I like how this suggestion references "barebacking," a term already in use.
(4) "To saddleback is to rail against gay sex in public while secretly indulging in the same in private. Ted Haggard? Total saddlebacker. Larry Craig? Saddlebacker. Rick Warren? Probably a saddlebacker." Ha ha ha. It's funny now, but I'm not picking this one because I think the joke will get old too fast.
(5) Yes! This one looks like the most appropriate choice so far because it directly speaks to the hypocritical, misinformed understanding of sex someone who goes through Rick Warren's idea of "sex-ed" would have.
(6) Like number 3, I think it works, but I think Dan should be looking for something more.
(7) Rick Warren probably loves the idea of "saddlebacking" as it is defined in this choice. That's reason enough not to pick it.
What do you think?
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