I am in a work-learn position as one of two Animation and Outreach Coordinators for Campus and Community Planning. Animating campus involves creating vibrant places and experiences within the UBC community. Key themes involve placemaking, health and wellbeing, and intercultural fluency.
After a great brainstorming session, we’ve come up with a few objectives for our projects this year:
- Create opportunities to connect with students and invoke feelings of belongingness/connection
- Build conversation with students to identify key spaces/places that reflect key themes.
- Seek opportunities to amplify these spaces collaboratively.
Our project will be engaging with student groups to animate public spaces on campus. UBC is often seen as an impossible wall of bureaucracy, and it is hard for students to truly leave their mark on campus (and particularly in the public realm).
Our Project is the “Pop-up Shop”, where we will collaborate with various student groups to create themed places of music, workshops, discussion and relaxation.
What I love about the project is that we’re providing opportunities for students to take ownership over creating memories, activities and impacts on campus. Not only are we building community through ownership, but we’re also building community through utilizing space and activity.
In LFS, we read about how ownership and empowerment is arguably the most effective method of invoking belongingness and community. Ensuring we’re accountable to the community that we care about is what invokes pride and connection, and opens and environment to learn and to want to learn. Furthermore, it’s been heartening to apply what I’ve learned in my real work experiences.