STUDENT PROJECTS
Eastman students complete a number of service projects during their time in the program, both group and individual. They are highlighted here.
Group Projects
The 2024 Cohort's Effective Communication Discussion
A Description of the Event
On April 20th, we welcomed the Eckerd College student body for an event highlighting the techniques that are helpful for effective communication.
Together, facilitated a settling exercise followed by the creation of a communication toolkit. All of which was tied together with discussion questions targeted at difficult subjects to explore what we learned.
The 2024 Cohort's Cinema Showcase
A Description of the Event
On April 20th, we welcomed Beth-El Farmworkers Ministry for an event showcasing "The Fields of Immokalee," a short documentary Teresita Matos-Post chose to bring to the Eckerd community.
Together, we facilitated a settling exercise followed by a discussion on the documentary and how it pertains to our surrounding Floridian community at the Center for Inclusive Excellence.
The 2023 Cohort's Day of Collective Healing
A Description of the Event
"Our intention for the day is to create spaces for our community to slow down and be wholly present in the moment–together and beyond a confined sense of professional academia that may exist in the classroom. Fighting stress and exertion, the ramifications of COVID-19, and personal/intergenerational traumatic retention, students and faculty alike have experienced burnout and anxiety, struggling to find time and space in their days to stop and check in on themselves or each other with keen sobriety and intention. We affect each other; these feelings easily reverberate and create a contagious unsettling that takes a toll on the collective well-being of friend groups, family dynamics, classrooms, and the culture of entire countries. In a school as small as and well-intentioned as Eckerd, we know we have the capacity for a community in which everyone feels genuinely seen and supported.
We will be hosting an event from 12-2 PM in Hough Quad, Grounding in the Grounds, where we invite everyone to come to enjoy settling exercises led by us, sensory toys, body paint, sidewalk chalk, and so much more to learn more about grounding and what it means to become a settled body. We are partnering with Bon Appetit to have comfort foods present for the community that day. The Dub Box will be open in Hough Quad from 12-2 PM, and there will be comfort foods provided at the Cafe for dinner. We will also have a table at the Earth Day Farm Feast from 4-7 PM, where we will have a similar table set up as we did earlier in the day and possibly lead settling exercises for attendees."
The 2023 Cohort's Little Book of Grounding Mindfulness Compiled for the Event
Settling Booklet.pdfThe 2022 Cohort's Right Use of Power CPS Event
A description of the event which attracted over 200 students, faculty, and staff: Following the republication of their website "Your Whiteness is Showing," the Senior Eastman Program cohort invites you to an open discussion where we address the response to our original website publication and the reasons we chose to reconstruct our site. The Senior Cohort will walk through the process of republication, highlight what changes were made to our website, elaborate on why we are bringing "Your Whiteness is Showing" to Eckerd's attention for a second time, and talk through how we hope our project will impact campus. Guests will then be invited to ask questions directly to the creators of the site in a discussion moderated by Professor Amy Langenberg, meant to engage attendees in a critical conversation on race on our campus.
Put on during the 2022 cohort's second semester in the program, this CPS event invited the Eckerd community to join the inaugural Eastman Leaders cohort for a discussion about individual leadership and Eckerd’s history.
The event description was as follows: It will be an evening of engaging activities, self reflection, and much much more. If you are interested in leadership, community work, or just want to learn more about Eckerd, this event is for you. This entire event is student led, so come learn with and from other Eckerd students!
The 2022 Cohort's Service Project Website
An Excerpt From the Website
"In the Spring of 2021, Eckerd College was confronting its privilege head-on. Conversations about race were at the front of many community members' minds. This website was created in response to what occurred that spring as a toolkit for individuals to tackle their own whiteness and privilege. We firmly believe that individual action and relearning can lead to community change.
This website was made with very specific intentions:
The first is to bring people into the movement for racial justice. This website can serve as a launchpad into your own conversations about what justice is and how racism and privilege are at play in your life.
The second is to provide clear definitions of what racism and whiteness are.
The third is to create a resource for people to continue learning about racial justice."
"Is Your Whiteness Showing?" CPS Event
Individual Projects
Bloody Change CPS Event
As a part of Isobel's Discovery Plan, she planned and hosted a Menstrual education program. It was open to ASPEC members, professors, and all students. The event included an educational presentation that discussed existing media that urges menstruation in silence, menstrual taxes, and limits in public education. Social awareness is crucial to stopping the continuation of these issues. Attendees were then encouraged to break off into intergenerational groups to discuss their experiences of menstruation and how it has affected them. To conclude the event, attendees participated in trivia that reviewed topics discussed and gave everyone facts to ponder about for future discussions.
Alex & Summer's Adventure on the Florida Trail
Click the photos for social media links to learn more!
Leah's Blog
"This is my final dissemination for my 'discovery plan,' which is a process of learning that I embarked on at the beginning of fall semester 2020 (my junior year). In essence, it's a documentation of the process of learning and unlearning and frustration that I have experienced over the course of this program and the seminar class attached to it.
This site is meant to provide me a place to organize myself as I learn what kind of person I want to be in the world. Almost like a stream of consciousness that encapsulates the process of completing various steps of my discovery plan; memorialized for future Eastman leaders. Maybe, hopefully, it might be useful to them. If you're not an Eastman student (or are) and you're still confused, check out my first blog post. It provides somewhat of an introduction."
Cat. 5 Magazine: The Life Issue
cat 5 volume 1 issue 1.pdfDerived from a conversation over cannolis and tart cakes in the heart of Little Italy, NYC, an idea manifested itself on a napkin to give storytellers a new platform to create. The Cat. 5 emerged as a project for members of The Current to explore different interests and stories around the Eckerd community in new and creative ways. Using the medium of a magazine, students embarked on semester-long stories about love on campus, the climate crisis' impact at Eckerd, life and death, Asian-American beauty perceptions, and much more. Completely student-led, created and published, it was a collaborative experience that gave us all an insight into the process of professional publishing.
-Zach Franco