Throughout the semester, the College of Art and Design, along with the Manship School of Mass Communication, has encouraged students to reach out to the community and make a difference.
They both have gone about it in different ways. These ways encourage taking action to help the poor, the environment and those who believe they don’t have a voice.
School of Architecture students presented their idea to create a market and café. It will be in downtown Baton Rouge and will be created to help develop a workplace for the homeless. The architecture fourth- and fifth-year students are designing it.
The Manship School also had two former congressmen as guest speakers. Rep. Bill Sarpalius and Rep. Dan Miller encouraged students to get involved by voting and possibly even running for office.
The College of Art and Design also had several Coastal Sustainability Studio Brown Bag Lecture Series. The series was about considering “how we are all active participants in the evolving story of coastal living in Louisiana,” said Michael Pasquier, one of the guest speakers.
The delegates who made the Louisiana Constitution spoke at the Manship School and said different races and women should be treated more equally than how the constitution established it.
The delegates said they wish they could go back and change it, but they called on future generations to change it.
Director of the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture Bradley Cantrell said the landscape architecture program is also moving toward more involvement in coastal change. The college hired new professors that posses knowledge and a wide skill-set in coastal and environmental sustainability, Catherine Bonier, a new professor, said.
Mary Beth Tinker, from the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines, was a guest speaker for the Manship School. The Tinker case was a problem addressing freedom of speech. Tinker, her brother and a few of their friends wore wrist bands to school protesting war. The principal threatened to suspend them if they wore it again and they did. The case went to the Supreme Court where Tinker won the case. Tinker spoke about the importance of knowing the rights every person has and putting those to the test. Students have a habit of going to social media to rant about what they believe is unjust, what Tinker calls “slackdivism,” instead of doing something about it and taking action. Tinker encouraged students to stop the “slackdivism,” and take action supporting their beliefs.