As a disclosure, I would like to point out that the event I plan to write about in this blog has not yet happened. However, the preparation that the event entails is a true testament to how much is involved in putting an event together. As secretary of Active Minds Club, I have learned what the club stands for and what it takes to spread its message to other students. On October 22^nd, the club is hosting an event to raise awareness on suicide rate among students in college. An average of 1,100 college students commit suicide every year. To spread the word on campus, the club is making 1,100 origami sailboats and hanging them in the trees to “Send Silence Sailing.” Students struggling with mental disorders such as depression and anxiety sometimes do not get the help they need, and it is imperative to break that cycle. Even making the slightest impact in the thoughts of students will make a difference and satisfy the goals of the club.

Through holding an officer position in the club, I have learned a variety of important skills such as leadership, communication, initiative and teamwork. My friend Nicole and I had arranged for all the girls on our dorm floor to help with folding the sailboats, a demonstration of initiative and teamwork. In pursuit of making this event successful, brainstorming with the president and the club has given insight as what to do for food and entertainment. Catering was established for the food and music will be played during the event. Competitions for prizes on the day of the event will be used to peak interest and encourage participation. As a way to make a difference aside from raising awareness, forms to detect mental disorders will be given at the table. After all the ideas voiced, emails sent and boats folded, Active Minds is fully prepared for the event on Tuesday.

Every Wednesday around 12 p.m. students can listen to a vast variety of music in the Campus Center by the Dunkin Donuts.  While eating some lunch or just killing time in between classes, students have the option of grabbing a table and enjoying the sweet melodies from different bands, solo artists, and even impersonators. “Tunes at Noon” is a fantastic way to give students that extra push to get through the rest of the week. This weekly event allows students to become more aware of local bands and artists. It also allows these musicians to showcase their artistic abilities. “Tunes at Noon” displays musicians of all different kinds of music genres to keep every student on campus entertained and satisfied.

There are many different bands and artists who performed in the fall semester of 2013 for “Tunes at Noon”. Some of these bands and artists include Brent and Company, a reggae oriented band, Elaine Faye, a solo artist whose music is considered soft rock, and even a professional Michael Jackson impersonator. There is always someone new performing in the Campus Center for “Tunes at Noon” which makes every Wednesday that more exciting. Country bands, soft rock artists, reggae musicians, punk rock bands, and impersonators are just a few of the types of entertainment that cab be found in the Campus Center all because of “Tunes at Noon”. If a student has a passion for music, wants to know more about local bands and artists, or just wants an escape from the “middle of the week” blues, all they have to do is stop by the Campus Center and enjoy some music.

For my third Stockton Event of the semester, I chose to attend the Girl Rising movie screening on Tuesday, November 19^th.  It was held in the Alton Auditorium at 4:30 PM and lasted approximately ninety minutes. The event functioned as both a Reflection Session and Dialogue Session through the Office of Service Learning. I decided to attend the event because I wanted to learn more about the film’s mission to educate a greater number of women globally.

The film presented the stories of nine different girls and their struggles against slavery, sexual abuse and poverty. Girl Rising advocates for more widespread access to education for girls. The campaign highlights the impact that education can have on women’s lives. According to the film, 65 million girls are not enrolled in school globally and that two-thirds of the world’s illiterate population are women. Interestingly, for every extra year of education they receive, girls earn 20% more money. Also, the film asserted that if India enrolled 1% more girls in secondary school, its GDP would rise by $5.5 billion. Girl Rising demonstrated the social and economic value in educating females that I previously was unaware of.  Following the screening of the film, a brief question and answer session was held.

Aside from being informative about the problems with global education, the event demonstrated that many fellow Stockton students are concerned with the impact and availability of education worldwide. I enjoyed the event and would recommend watching Girl Rising to learn more about educational inequality throughout the world.

Beginning at midnight on Monday October 14th and continuing through Friday the 18th the Stockton Gaming Club hosted a week long game of tag with a twist. Humans versus Zombies is a campus-wide game open to all students. Zombies are distinguished by wearing a green band around their head, whereas humans have a band around their arms. Approximately 200 students registered online to play and out of those students one was chosen as the “original zombie.”  The original zombie wears his band around his arm like a human until he is discovered and then moves his band to his head like the other zombies. Once a human is tagged by a zombie, he too becomes a zombie. Humans carry nerf guns and balled up socks to protect themselves from the hordes of zombies. Once a zombie is hit he is considered frozen for ten minutes and cannot tag any humans. Every night there are missions for the humans which include a variety of tasks for them to complete. Prior to the mission on Monday night 17 people had been turned into zombies. Although 17 is a small number in comparison to 158 humans, panic had already set in on campus. The zombies move in packs in order to increase their chances of getting a tag. Humans also quickly develop allies in an effort to survive. The first mission which led the humans down Dark Path resulted in a terrifying chase around the lake. The campus filled with paranoia as the human numbers began to dwindle. Tuesday’s mission started the humans in F court and led them to the Unified Science Center. Zombies anxiously awaited their arrival and hid along Dark and Light Path. Wednesday’s mission sent humans to Housing 2, Housing 4, and Lake Pam with an optional trek to the observatory in search of puzzle pieces. The zombies divided themselves and went in groups to the four locations. My group was sent behind Housing 2 where we waited in the woods, for 45 minutes, for humans to arrive. After Wednesday’s mission the numbers changed in favor of the zombies. There are also vaccines hidden all of over campus that allow humans to recover after a zombie tags them. On Wednesday, a new element was incorporated into the game. Anyone wearing an orange band is considered military. The military is allowed to tag humans and to stun zombies. By Thursday afternoon the human numbers have dwindled to 57 with 158 zombies. Thursday’s mission has yet to be disclosed with multiple rumors going around, but one thing is for certain; it will be a blood bath. With the end of the week quickly approaching the only real question left is, will humanity survive or will the zombies overrun the campus?

Taylor Adams

On the weekend of November 15^th, several of the officers of Active Minds club attended the Tenth Annual National Active Minds Conference. The trip was open and free for all club members. The event took place at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Club members from all over the country were in attendance. The national organization represents over 400 chapters that share the common goal of raising awareness about mental health issues among college students. Attendees had their pick on a variety of activities from workshops to speakers to singers. On the first day, one fellow member and I attended an interactive leadership seminar. The speaker running the program was an incredibly humble and welcoming person. She radiated confidence and life. Later on, we discovered that she is currently recovering from an eating disorder and depression. Her story touched many and reminded us why we were carrying out this mission. We learned a myriad of skills and tips as well as life lessons.

The day was concluded with the annual Stomp Out Stigma Walk which represented putting an end to harmful titles attached to people because of their differences. We were given our choice of color glow stick. The color we chose was symbolic for the reasons we were participating in the walk: for a friend, for a family member, for yourself, to change the world. The following day consisted of more insightful workshops about club recruitment and retention and fundraising tactics to keep the clubs running strong. The third day we were introduced to the Strangers Project. The founder Brandon explained his global work of collecting strangers’ stories. It started with him simply sitting in a coffee shop with a large sign that read, “What’s your story?” He sparked people’s attention and has acquired over 7000 stories around the world. This inspired us to start something similar in the Stockton community. All in all, the trip was an incredible experience that opened our eyes to new opportunities and perspectives that we can utilize at Stockton in reaching our ultimate goal.

Stockton’s 10th annual day of service was a great turn out. There were lines stretched to the door in the campus center of students waiting in line to sign in for the day of service. We were provided with breakfast and were given boxed lunches. After breakfast the ambassadors of the day ushered the students into the event room which was filled with tables. On the website there was a very brief overview of what each service project was for. My friends and I were a few of the first people to arrive in the event room so we had a lot of options. A majority of the time we wandered around the room trying to decide which project to choose. The big screens with a description of each service project were helpful and in the end a couple of my friends and I chose the Shore Park Tenant Association.
It was a group of about five students and two service project leaders. The main point of our service project was to help prepare and serve the food for a party at the Shore Park Tenant Association, which is a home for the elderly and disabled. We sat around the table and introduced ourselves while waiting quite a long time to be dismissed. We were transported to the Tenant home by a van, except not everyone could fit so the professors took their own car. When we arrived at the place we were very unsure of whether we were even at the right place. We hadn’t obtained any of the professors’ phone numbers so we just walked in. Thankfully there were people expecting us and welcomed us. After getting there most of the tables were already set up so we really didn’t have much to do. We sat around and waited for instructions while the people of the tenant home prepared the food. For a while I helped in the kitchen and cut ribs but did not do much else afterwards. After about an hour of chit chat we finally started to help set up. Around noon the tenants started coming to the dining hall and we started serving food.
Many of the people there were very friendly and extremely excited to get all their food. We took turns at different stations serving food or bringing it to the tables. Some of the tenants had their grandchildren over so I had the chance to take a few kids to the garden in the backyard and play with them. We all were supposed to leave around 2:30, but left a little later. We really should have stayed longer because there were still many tenants that were coming down to eat. If the timing had been better we could have arrived later so that we would have been more involved in serving food. Then we could have left later so that we could have helped with the entire cleanup process, because that was probably the thing they would have needed the most help with.
Overall the entire experience was quite rewarding. I enjoyed being able to help people and interact with them. There were many things, however, that could have been better. First of all, there should be better organization in the event room so that everyone is fully informed of what they are volunteering for. Also the people running the volunteer place did not seem like they were prepared with tasks for the volunteers. If they were more prepared for us then we would have been much more helpful to them. At the end of the day we had a mini reflection session and everyone seemed to enjoy their day except for the waiting around. Next time I hope to feel that I was able to provide more of a service instead of feeling like I spent most of my time waiting around.

I was skeptical upon seeing students with bright orange Nerf guns, balled up socks, and neon green bands around their arms and heads running around chasing each other on Honors Scholars Day in the spring before I moved into Stockton. The whole notion of college students playing such a game as something called Humans Vs. Zombies (or HVZ, as it’s affectionately called) kind of surprised me. College, to me, was supposed to be a serious, pedantic place where you were not allowed to have time for seemingly childish activities. After moving into Stockton and making friends that were ecstatic to participate in this event, lasting from October 13-18, 2013, however, resulted in me apprehensively joining in and completely changing my opinion, while having tons of fun in the process.

An essential part of HVZ is the Nerf gun, as it is a human’s only defense, save for balled up socks, against being tagged by a zombie, which turns you into a zombie yourself. Shooting a dart or throwing a sock at a zombie stuns them for ten minutes, allowing you ample time to run away and stay human. Soon after signing up, I went to buy myself my very own gun and dig for old socks and the bottom of my drawer. Then strapping on the green band around my arm the next day, I was officially ready for HVZ to begin.

Besides the constant paranoia of having to watch out for my headband wearing classmates lurking around outside (as weare not allowed to be tagged inside), most of my first day of HVZ was successful as a human. It wasn’t until later at the nightly mission that my back was turned and I was tagged by a zombie. I somewhat begrudgingly gave up my status as a human and joined the zombie ranks.

Being a zombie was even more fun than being a human, as I discovered throughout the week. I got to chase humans and scare them merely by walking by. Later that week, I even found myself hiding in bushes in anticipation of humans walking by. There was also a higher sense of comradery amongst the zombies. Humans tended to have the mentality of “better you than me”. Being a zombie, on the other hand, means watching your fellow zombies’ backs and helping each other obtain tags by turning more humans into zombies. I even got my own tag when I was walking out of the Unified Science Center and noticed a human with her back turned to me.

HVZ was ultimately an extremely amusing experience for me that resulted in many new friends. The unexpected teamwork and comradery involved helped improved how I work with others and banded the Stockton community together. I also realized that college does not always mean leaving behind childish ways, but embracing them with a new outlook. It is something distinctive that sets Stockton apart from many other colleges in the country. Not everyone gets to spend a week at college playing with Nerf guns and hunting and chasing fellow classmates while still attending class, as I like brag to my friends back home.

For my first official weekend here at Stockton College, I chose to participate in the tenth Annual Day of Service. The day offered ample opportunity to research clubs, volunteer for good causes and meet a variety of new people. Eager to find the right club to participate in, I quickly ate my bagel and proceeded to find the best fit club to enjoy a fun-filled day of service. My friend and I chose to work with Circle K, a club dedicated to providing service for children, elders, animals and the homeless. The tasks for the day were to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the homeless shelter, sew teddy bears and blankets as well as make cards for the children in the hospital, and braid homemade dog toys for the animal shelter.

I spent a majority of my time making cards for terminally ill children. I was supplied with information of specific children with illnesses such as cancer. I found it slightly difficult coming up with what to say in the cards. For one boy’s card, I wrote “Thanks for being Awesome” with the word “awesome” written in 3-D with paper. I tried my best to personalize their cards with their names as well as their interests. At one point, I was running out of ideas: I drew a picture of a cat on the front of the card with the message “Here’s a kitten to brighten your day” inside of it. Although a card is a small, insignificant gesture in the grand scheme of things, it could potentially mean the world to a parent or the child (even if it is only for a moment). Overall, the experience was fun as well as helpful for others. Ever since I came to Stockton, my world has expanded immensely. Instead of simply completing a service project, the experience has opened my eyes to certain possibilities in terms of future volunteer work and even careers.