Building Bridges 2016
Gustavus Adolphus College is known for its incredible academics and close-knit community, but a truly unique facet of this prestigious college is the opportunity students have to immerse themselves in an annual conference which promotes social change, diversity, and awareness. Since its creation in 1995, Building Bridges functions to address a different relevant social issue or theme each year.
Previous Building Bridges titles include: Sentenced For Life: Confronting the Calamity of Mass Incarceration, Disposable Communities? Demanding Environmental Justice and most recently, Hidden in Plain Sight: Recognizing and Rejecting Rape Culture. This year, the 21st Building Bridges conference will discuss the inequalities caused by “the war on drugs.”
The conference is titled Silver or Lead: The Many Faces of Wealth and Violence in The War on Drugs. This topic will explore the interpersonal, and often accidental, institutional and structural affects of US drug policy, both nationally and internationally.
Additional conversation includes the generation of wealth which expands beyond the actual exchange of money for drugs, but also the money generated from incarceration, legal fines, and sensationalized media.
“There is a lot of unintended but very real violence associated with drug policy in the United States,” Senior Awushie Fayose said.
This year, Building Bridges aims to open minds and illicit conversation while challenging a sensitive, but very timely, societal issue.
Entirely student-led, Building Bridges is co-chaired by two students who demonstrate passion and initiative for social change and diversity. This year’s co-chairs are Senior Awushie Fayose and Junior Esrea Perez-Bill. As co-chairs of this event, Fayose’s and Perez-Bill’s initial responsibility includes choosing a topic. From there, they begin contacting keynote speakers, planning a schedule for the conference, appointing individuals to the executive board, booking rooms, hosting a variety of meetings and much more.
“I can be on the front lines of the social justice movement while simultaneously acting as a coordinator. I think that’s pretty special,” Junior Esrea Perez-Bill said.
Ultimately, the co-chairs are responsible for organizing, interpreting, and communicating with the teams that work alongside the organization to develop such an auspicious event.
No matter the year or the topic, students can expect the same caliber of intellectual challenge and call to action.
“I’m hoping that this topic introduces a new dimension to a widely discussed and socially relevant issue,” said Fayose.
Students can attend pre-events to the conference starting on Nov. 11 with the screening of The House I Live In, a documentary about “the war on drugs.” There will also be many other pre-events through January leading up to the 21st Building Bridges Conference on March 5, 2016.