Virginia Wesleyan University is a thriving Liberal Arts college within itself and to show Virginia Wesleyan had a series of programs and speakers.
From Feb. 11 through Feb. 21, the ‘Love Liberally’ symposium made many events ranging in different categories along with having different dotation spots set up as well as events and discussions to help us celebrate Valentine’s day.
Starting off, Hofheimer Library had a ‘Warm up Wednesday’ where they gave out hot chocolate and tea and a student could also go and decorate a heart shaped cookie.
Anikka Jones stopped by this event and stated that “everything looked cute and bright.”
There was also Love for Learning: Cookie Palooza held Feb. 13, in Clarke Hall second floor and a student could stop by and grab some cookies and milk to help celebrate Valentine’s day.
Along with these series of events there was a campus clean up “For the Love of Mother Nature.” Students were provided with rubber gloves and trash bags with trash grabbers as well.
On Feb. 14 at 12:00 p.m. students were walking around campus and picking up trash and recycling to help keep this campus clean and beautiful.
The hope is to keep this program going in the future. Wesleyan Engaged partnered with Kappa Alpha Phi Fraternity, Inc. to sponsor this wonderful event.
Another great program held at Virginia Wesleyan was the free HIV and STI testing which was held Feb. 18.
A senior here at Virginia Wesleyan took advantage of this program, stating that “having programs like these are really helpful because it is really important for everyone to stay healthy and this program makes it easy and accessible.”
A food drive was held and ran from Feb. 1 to Feb. 15 where non-perishable food items were donated and collected.
This event was sponsored by Wesleyan Engaged and Newport News Commissioner’s office along with Toiletries and Women’s Health needs for the Emergency Women’s Shelters. Extra Toiletries such as hygiene products and other femine products were donated and collected as well.
This started on Feb. 14, and is currently running through March 14. This event is also sponsored by Wesleyan Engaged as well as INTEL, NAMI and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
One of the other programs, hosted by Dr. Denise Wilkinson on Feb. 19 at 10:00, was centered around pervoise voting from her Algebra 105 students on what the most romantic film is.
The concept revolved around the students taking their pervoise ballots based on their favorite and applying their election topic knowledge to determine the outcome of the vote on what the Most Romantic Film of the twenty first century was.
The students voting choices were “Bridget Jones,” “Monimea,” “Love Ashly” and “Remember Me.”
The students worked together in small groups to work out their problem as they applied their chapter methods to figure out the answer. This program was unique in that the students worked together. Not only did they do an amazing job at solving the voting problem, but they did it while having fun as well. There were also a couple of events where guest speakers appeared and had conversations revolving the topic of love.
One of these discussions hosted was titled “Is Love What Makes a Subaru a Subaru?” held by University Chaplain, Greg West. In this talk they discussed what love is and isn’t and the difference between love and lust.
There was another discussion held in Clarke by Robin Takacs called,“What’s Love Got To Do With It?” where they discussed relationships and feelings over texting and social media along with the effects it can have on a relationship and how this can make someone feel and respond.
Kim DeHart
kmdehart@vwu.edu
