Each year for the past four years Undergraduate Studies has facilitated an interdisciplinary, institutional theme to connect curricular and co-curricular experiences across disciplines and provide a framework for common intellectual experiences for our students.
This year's theme is the Decade of the 1960s - Take it all in! provided a great opportunity for students to learn about their field from a different time period – and the opportunity to add to their portfolio – and sharing what they learned with the greater university community.
One event held was a discussion on war focusing from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Students were asked to engage in discourse on these wars, their impact on current endeavors and their influence on activism.
Gloria Steinem, an award-winning writer and activist spoke at the John W. Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center. Steinem has been involved globally in feminist and social justice movements for more than four decades and wrote a book about her years as a feminist organizer titled "Road to the Heart: America as if Everyone Mattered." Listen to her speech
Steinem's address at WCU followed the annual Gender Research Conference held on campus and is part of events connected to the 2013-14 campuswide interdisciplinary learning theme, "1960s: Take It All In."
"Gloria Steinem became a beacon of the 1960s women's movement, and through her visible leadership women were able to make changes in workplace equality, violence against women, reproductive rights and political influence, to name a few," said Marilyn Chamberlin, WCU associate professor of sociology, director of women's studies and steering committee member for the 1960s learning theme. "Her work gave the women's movement a collective voice around which to rally, a voice that is still very active today in the same areas."
The "New Lens Film Series" featured six films shown throughout the academic year each with their own tie to the 1960's.