During the past few weeks, UNITE has been extremely busy with both chapter meetings and events. At our chapter's final meeting of the semester, Dorothy Espelage, who's a nationally recognized bullying expert, spoke to us about the realities of bullying in the classroom. It was really interesting to learn that what looks like bullying can be interpreted differently depending on culture.
On the last day of class this semester, we hosted our first college-wide celebration, the Latino Culture and Education Fiesta! We had fajitas, tamales, chips, salsa, beans, queso dip, and more donated to us from various restaurants in the campus area (remembering this is making me extremely hungry!).
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| There was SO much food!! |
We gave out free food, had a raffle featuring Starbucks coffee, and handed out information about teaching Latino students from professors and CPS teachers. I had a blast talking with people I hadn't met yet from the College of Education. I will admit it was a little bittersweet when I realized it was the last time I'd see most of our members for at least a month! I've met some of the most interesting, intelligent, and motivated people on campus through UNITE, so it's sad we won't all be together for awhile!
Clearly, I'm in denial that we will not have our Senior Advisers around next semester. I'm not ready to think about that yet!
Finally, last Saturday we volunteered with the Champaign Park District to help facilitate a free Christmas celebration for area kids. There was cookie decorating, face painting, snacks, ornament making...and most importantly, Santa! We spend a lot of time as future educators learning about students (obviously!), so I thought it was really interesting to meet some families! Everyone was really excited to be there, and it was a wonderful way to wrap up a great semester. What do we have planned for the future? Our major event for next semester is our ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK trip to WASHINGTON D.C.! Most of our energy will go into planning that. We're going to continue to have bi-weekly meetings with speakers, as well as hosting a monthly fundraiser (like our famous bake sales or our Latino Culture luncheon). Over break, our leadership team will be travelling to Chicago to do some team building with UNITE Nationals. Finally, we're hoping to plan a workshop at U of I later in the semester. It's crazy to think about how much we've done, and yet we still have so much to do this year!
If you're interested in joining UNTIE in 2012, be sure to email me at president.uniteuiuc@gmail.com so we can let you know all about our meeting times and dates!
Happy holidays!
