|
Providence holds to a conviction that while learning centers on the efforts of professors in the classroom, it entails much more than classroom material. That is the reason that they work hard on the 4W program and other efforts that push students to engage the world critically beyond exams and research papers. That is also the reason that the Student Life department would never consider itself the “non-academic” side of a Providence college experience. Rather, Student Life intentionally pushes the educational experience into residence halls and campus events, joining with professors in a whole learning experience.
On the lines of that charge, Student Life has implemented an educational/spiritual theme for the semester—an academic and practical exploration of both poverty and an appropriate Christian response to it. The idea behind making a semester theme of an issue like poverty lies in the problem that learning about it in a classroom tends to keep an understanding of poverty strictly within academic lines, like an interesting discussion. On the other hand, just participating in service trips or collecting donations rarely lend themselves to critical evaluation of real sources and solutions of poverty. Also, either one of those approaches can easily become an easy one-time salve for people burdened to respond to poverty.
Therefore, they have made it a semester-long goal to encourage students to carefully examine poverty and prayerfully consider their place in addressing it. They started the semester with a community-wide day-long fast that opened and closed with a time of prayer for people all over the world suffering poverty and for a burden on hearts as they consider a Christian responsibility toward them. They have also invited a few chapel speakers to bring their perspectives and challenges to the table.
As the semester rolls forward, a group of students and Student Life staff will continue to plan discussion-generating events and service opportunities that lean more toward long-term commitments rather than one-time projects. Also, faculty have been approached with the theme and a number are planning to touch on poverty through the semester, tying the theme inside the classroom as well.
Through events and speakers, as well as an electronic discussion on poverty, the hope is to move the discussion toward a lifestyle—one where students continue to work through the questions of poverty on their own and in their communities and address it as members of the body in the world.
| 
