CLARK UNIVERSITY

This year, the BSU X CUSC Collective, CAIC, FIRM, See You Collective, ISRC, THAW, and CUGWU collaborated to organize the third annual Rise for Racial Justice! This week of programming focused on the experience of BIPOC student-athletes, the importance of mutual aid, food insecurity and  justice in higher education, Disability justice at Clark, advocacy work for international students, how to use GIS for social change, and how art shapes social movements. A huge shoutout goes out to all the organizers and we look forward to continuing this work! 

This year, our executive board collaborated with the Strassler Center to reimagine what a Land Acknowledgement could look like and how to actively become an institution that recognizes the land it occupies. This work is ongoing, and we hope to further work with other key campus partners to increase campus-wide programming focused on the Nipmuc Nation, create spaces for indigenous identifying students, and increase awareness of our positionally as a PWI. 

Last fall, our CUSC VP Sofia Bishop’ 23  and Secretary Caleb Gibson’ 22 submitted a proposal to the provost’s office urging for them to consider adding additional wellness days to the academic calendar. This effort began, spearheaded by the previous executive board STRIVE, sought to build off upon the ongoing conversations and advocacy surrounding student wellness. As we emerged out of the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the larger executive board recognized an opportunity for the university to continue to provide students with wellness days to bring student wellness needs to the forefront. This resulted in additional wellness days being added during Spring 2022.