Eastern Connecticut State University played a large role at the recent Connecticut Campus Compact (CTCC) Social Justice Leadership Conference held at Wesleyan University on Oct. 31. With a conference theme of “Unmasking Social Change,” students, staff and faculty from Eastern delivered three presentations at the conference.

Emily Cameron ’15, an AmeriCorps VISTA with Eastern’s Center for Community Engagement, presented “Forwards, Backwards and Inside-Out: The Essential Elements in Planning a Service-Based Event.” Her presentation discussed the logistics of planning and marketing an event, as well as building community partnerships and drawing donor/volunteer support.

Sociology Professor Nicolas Simon and Kim Silcox, CCE director, presented “Working Together to Promote Community Service: Using Social Media to Transform the Image of the Community.” Sociology student Josh Henton ’17 also spoke on the topic, describing a class he took with Professor Simon in which he interacted with students from Windham Middle School to determine how they perceive Willimantic.

Emily Blandford, a residence hall director at Eastern, led a discussion about the “gender spectrum.” Students were given the opportunity through discussions and various forms of media to understand and differentiate between gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression and sexual behavior, and how society expects people to follow certain gender norms.

In addition to shuttling vanloads of Eastern students to and from Wesleyan, the CCE helped to organize the conference. Future CTCC conferences will rotate to other CTCC member campuses, including Eastern.
The Social Justice Leadership Conference advocated for students who are committed to community service, civic engagement, social justice and social change. The 2015 conference theme of “Unmasking Social Change” was designed to provide a framework where students could examine their motivations for social justice and service, enhance their understanding of social issues and increase their capacity and skills to positively impact their campus and community.