End of Semester Shenanigans!

After today blog updates will be sporadic until the Fall 2011 semester begins. To keep you all from missing us too much we've created a little video tribute to the 'Dub C & our graduating seniors.



If you're going to be around this summer for classes or anything, we'll be open for most of the summer from 12pm-5pm. Feel free to come by and hang out on our comfy couches :)

To Laura, Michelle, Becky, Shane, and all of our graduating WC friends ... we will miss you all so much! To everyone else: have a great summer, see you in a few months!

Massachusetts Bullying Case

15-year old Phoebe Prince took her own life after being continuously ridiculed by fellow school mates. She was physically attacked, verbally abused and emotionally unstable due to the careless acts committed by friends of a former boyfriend of hers. the case has been surrounded around 6 students allegedly involved in the bullying. The most amazing part of this story is the amount of time and investigation Massachusetts has put in to reveal the truth about this child's suicide. She was a young, innovative girl who made one decision that turned into misery, not by choice but by antagonizing peers.

The day she took her life she was followed from the library all the way home, being bullied and verbally abused by student s who found they acts harmless. There is nothing harmless about any abuse or injury to anyone's emotions or state of mind. To bully is too attack the feelings and to devour the soul in ways unexplainable. This teenage girl had been repeatedly faced with the effects of jealousy and hate and yet no one has received jail time. I am saddened to once again see that the lives of amazing children in the world are be taken by the acts of careless individuals who do not care to watch how they treat people or consider for a moment what their actions may cause.

TRi find out more about this case visit : http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/05/05/massachusetts.bullying.trial/index.html

Rape Victim Flees from Libya

Click the Title Link to find out more

The Truth About Mother's Day

Mother's Day is coming up this Sunday! In honor of this, we'd like to share with you Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation which was sent to us the other day by Barbra Harrison, a Women's Center Director from the '80s, via Lee Sennish! (Thanks to both of these wonderful women!)

Mother's Day originated after the Civil War, as a form of protest regarding the death and destruction of the war, by women who had lost their sons. Mother's Day was created in 1858 by a community activist named Anna Reeves Jarvis. Jarvis organized Mothers' Works Days in West Virginia, with the goal of improving sanitation in Appalachian communities of West Virginia. During the Civil War, Jarvis and other women left their families to care for the wounded on both sides. Jarvis also spent her time during the war as a peacemaker, calling together meetings to try and convince men on both sides to end the fighting.

In 1872, Julia Ward Howe proposed an annual National Mother's Day for Peace. This is the original proclimation that she issued:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Americans celebrated Mothers' Day for Peace on June 2 for thirty years after this proclamation. In 1913 Congress declared that the second Sunday in May would be Mother's Day.Many activists mark this proclamation as the turning point where Mother's Day became commercialized and focused on honoring mothers through gifts and fancy meals (consumer goods) rather than through activism and the pursuit of peace.

Personally, I would love to reclaim Mother's Day for Peace by keeping this activist perspective firmly in mind this Sunday. I play to talk with my family (at Mother's Day Brunch) about the origins of this holiday and what it means, as a start in reclaiming it. I also plan to make a donation to the activist organization of my mother's choice as a means of reclaiming those roots. What do you think?

Time for a Cute Break!

For those of you in the middle of finals stress check out Cute Roulette! This site features an endless supply of cute animal videos... perfect for a quick five-minute break from studying.



This video is one of my favorites... feel free to share one of yours in the comments.

Also, don't forget to stop by the Women's Center for dancing, snacks, and prizes!

Shoutout to J.Lees!

I don't have much to say today because everyone in the Women's Center has been INCREDIBLY busy playing the Michael Jackson Just Dance Game... if you haven't stopped by to join us already, please do! It will be up & running through Friday at 5pm. Come watch the WC Staff & random guests look silly (or awesome, depending on the person) while listening to some really good music! We also have delicious snacks and fun prizes!

The picture to the left is of an awesome poster that is currently up all over J.Lees,  (and probably in other Student Development offices too.) We have a tiny copy in the Women's Center as well. This sign does a good job of embodying what we are all about here (compare it to the mission statement up top!) and it means so much that other offices in the Student Development family are also promoting this message.  

Thanks J.Lees!

Check back tomorrow for something else fun :)

Finals Week Fun, Part One!

Tomorrow is the last day of classes and after tomorrow, finals week will officially be upon us. Because we are rapidly approaching the end of this semester, the official Women's Center blogging semester is over. However, as publicist, I am going to do my best to throw some fun things up here through May 11th to help take the pressure off of finals a bit!

Since we love youtube videos in the 'DubC, and the White House Correspondant's Dinner just happened, today I want to share Obama's comedic speech with anyone who missed it!



See you tomorrow!