CB Spotlight: Week of 9/23/2013 (Part B)

Sustainability Shopping

Hosted by: Erin Digan, St. Monica
CB Category: Veritas
Objective: Take residents to Target armed with a shopping list of the sustainable options that Target has to offer

Erin said this about preparing for and running this CB,

"I created a shopping list of products that Target has to offer that come from companies that are practicing social responsibility and are sustainable. From this list, I gave each resident a copy and told them that as they did their shopping they should think twice when picking their usual brand if there is an alternative that is sustainable. One of my residents said it was easy to make the switch to the alternative because the products were relatively the same price and she was excited to try something new. It is a easy way to take an ordinary trip to Target and make it a sustainable one!"

Check out Erin's sustainability shopping list to inspire your own CB or to make your Target shopping more sustainable!

CB Spotlight: Week of 9/23/2013 (Part A)

Spies and Lies

Hosted by: Matt Gregory, Katharine
CB Category: Veritas
Objective: Discuss the CIA and espionage

Matt said this about planning the CB,

"The 'Spies and Lies' discussion was presented by Noel Dolan who works with the Freshman Learning Communities. The talk was about Espionage and the CIA during the 50s, specifically during an era known as the McCarthy Era. Noel brought in Dr. David M. Barrett, a Villanova University Political Science Professor. The talk was done completely by Dr. Barrett as he gave background of the era and what occurred along with information about the CIA, including common misconceptions. He then finished with a Q&A with the attendees and it ended in little under an hour. My role in this talk was mostly to drum up interest with the residents. Early in RA training we had a dinner with the learning community professors and were able to work out the nitty gritty details regarding where the CB would take place and they left the advertising of the CB to us. There was a signup sheet for the CB in our lobby which included a small description of what the talk was which I felt was very helpful. I found that the best way to get residents interested was to email them about a week in advance and then in the days leading up I used word of mouth to keep the event in their heads. The turnout was much better than expected, about 15-20 residents showed up. The feedback from my residents was that the talk was informative and interesting and that they were glad they attended."

Look what RAs can do when they partner with other offices on campus!

CB Spotlight: Week of 9/16/2013

Life Lessons from TED Talks

Hosted by: Joey Reckamp, Delurey
CB Category: Veritas
Objective: View TED talks that contain messages about different life lessons

Joey shared the following about planning this CB:

"To prepare for the TED talks event, I had to do some research to gather applicable TED talks from the website (www.ted.com/talks). I have seen many of the TED talks before so it was more about finding ones that I had seen previously and verifying that they were appropriate for a CB. I was mainly looking for the shorter videos that were a bit more fast paced to keep the residents interested as well as ones that had some interesting lessons taught in different ways than they were used to.

After organizing the event, I found that many of the residents were interested in attending the CB, but had various commitments (intramurals, sports practices, rushing events, group projects, etc.) that night. Since I was on duty, I ended up basically just showing videos all night and having people come in when they could to watch them. Some of the good ones definitely changed the residents' perspectives (especially the shoe-tying one) and overall I was given a very good response about the event. I even had a few ask for more videos and the link to the general TED talks website so that they could look up their own videos."

Check out the shoe-tying video that Joey's residents really loved!

Here is a list of the other talks Joey used during his CB.

• http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html

• http://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash_in_social_media.html

• http://www.ted.com/talks/renny_gleeson_404_the_story_of_a_page_not_found.html

• http://www.ted.com/talks/rives_on_4_a_m.html

• http://www.ted.com/talks/renny_gleeson_on_antisocial_phone_tricks.html

• http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html

• http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

• http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html

• http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html