As you log on to this blog to start posting, a lot of you probably don't even know who I am. If you signed up to come on this trip our hearts are going to be connected after you experience all of the places that you are about to go! Over a year ago, I heard about a trip that the students at Marquette University took to some of the places that you are about to go and I thought to myself, this is what UWEC needs. All of us need that experience of putting ourselves in that place and time where injustice was so easy to see. Maybe it wasn't so easy for those people in positions of privledge to see at the time, but it is easy to see looking back. While I was in Eau Claire (I now am working at the University of Illinois) I felt like things were pretty easy. It was easy to go through life never having to be accountable for the privelage that most of us were able to take for granted. I thought that this trip could be a way for us to learn about so many of the injustices that took place in our country and also give us a new lens to look at our own lives and our own actions once we got home.
As I started to talk about my dream for this trip to happen, I was blessed to have 4 resident assistants jump at the chance to plan this trip out. Sarah Gonzalez, Katie Lashua, Tim Kenney, and Chris Nielson are the true creators of this trip and they made it come to life and gave future UWEC trips a model to follow!
I know that as you are looking at Little Rock High School and you think of those kids who gave up so much for a better education, or see that balcony in Memphis and think that this was the spot that a hero died, or stand in Montgomery and know that this where people walked and walked instead of riding the bus in order to make their point your heart will be touched just like mine was.
I look forward to reading about YOUR trip!
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Hello fellow Pilgrams-
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to experience the Pilgrimage and to meet all of you. I feel very honored to have been invited to participate in this experience, and know it will be life changing for all of us. I have traveled throughout the world and experienced culture in South America, Africa, India, other parts of Asia and been in awe. I now can travel back in time and see how far we've come as a nation and how far we still have to go. I am so impressed with and amazed that someone had the vision to create such an immersion experience. I can't wait to meet our students and to get to know each other. Beth Hellwig, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs