August 29, 2011

First thing this morning, we had a "Breakfast Scavenger Hunt" which was basically going around the main campus building and meeting the different people who work there. There was different food/drink at each.

Today's Hyde Park Immersion was not exactly what I was expecting. The program said that we would begin at 9:30 and then the next thing on the schedule was at 4. I wasn't sure I really wanted to be walking for almost 7 hours and wasn't quite sure how we could spend that much time just in Hyde Park. ANyway. The walking didn't start until 11:30, we had Bible study beforehand. We broke into 7 groups, and each group was to explore a specific section of Hyde park.

My group's area encompassed 50th and Drexel. Which is the intersection where Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition is located. We went there and got a tour for about an hour and a half from the director of the athletic/academic program for youth. Then....we actually got to meet Rev. Jackson!! He came and talked to us briefly. They took pictures (with the cameras they had there....none of us students had a camera..) and we each got an autographed poster! What an unexpected surprise!!!!

Then we got to eat pizza and learn about security. The University of Chicago patrols our campus as well. They have 35 cars and their officers have the same training as Chicago police officers. He recommended that we call the University police instead of 911 if there is an emergency because they will get there MUCH faster than the Chicago police. We also all have whistles. If something happens, we can blow the whistle...other people will hear as well and they will blow theirs. On test runs, it took the UC police 84 seconds to respond to a whistle blow. There are also phones all over the place where we can pick up and they will know just where to come find us. They also have escort services who will make sure we get home/to our destination safely if we need them. He gave us safety tips, most of which can be summed up as PAYING ATTENTION.

Then the upperclassmen put on very funny skits for us. Then I came back to my apartment. Now I'm tired and ready for sleep. Tomorrow we get to learn about diversity training. Which I am finding quite interesting. There is LOTS of diversity in the Hyde Park neighborhood. There is even quite a bit of diversity in the LSTC staff/faculty. However, looking at this entering class.....there isn't much visible diversity at all. With very few exceptions, we all appear to be middle class white folk. The biggest diversity in our class is that about 7 of us are gay. But you can't really tell that by looking at us.