OPINION
THE vanguard
FEBRUARY 27, 2014
11
NOTES FROM ABROAD melissa clauss vienna, austria
you friendship Describe a l. with a loca have made ip is relationsh How has th ience? your exper influenced
Rebecca hyatt
glasgow, scotland
sitting together. She has been kind enough to invite me to the movies with some of her friends. They have the inside scoop about the university and know where the local hangouts are. One is a comedy club that they told me about, The Stand, which I may not have found out about had it not been for them. It has been great getting to know a fellow student. She is from England, not Scotland, so we are somewhat in the same boat, seeing that
we are both ‘outsiders’. Having someone who has been at the university for a while and knows the ins and outs is helpful to me so I am able to become more comfortable with my surroundings. She is part of the student life, and knows when activities, like Bingo, are going on at the student unions. It makes me feel more like a part of the university and a regular student, rather than an international exchange student.
Getting to know a fellow student has been one of Hyatt’s highlights in Scotland.
Courtesy of humanandnatural.com
Courtesy of milliesminibunshire.com
After my first English Literature tutorial, I was walking out of class when one of the girls from the class came up to me and asked me a question. Since I didn’t exactly know how to get from the tutorial to our English class, I kept talking to her in order to follow her and make sure I got to class correctly. I sat with her and her friends in our lecture. From then on, we have been
ersity Bentley Univ treet 175 Forest S A 02452 Waltham, M
I was fortunate to befriend a local right off the bat, through Bentley as a connection nonetheless! He planned to study at Bentley in Fall 2014, so we bonded over sharing information from each other’s universities, learning about each other’s school systems and everything else over coffee and through city walks. My experience abroad was influenced by this relationship. Befriending someone from a completely different culture can be
utterly uncomfortable – you question your ignorance, worry about each silence in conversation and don’t know where the friendship will take you – but afterwards you gain a sense of confidence and become more relaxed. You realize that it’s not much different from forging a friendship anywhere else. Within a couple of hours we found ourselves debating the influence of super bowl ads and laughing over crazy party stories… conversations that I would have in America, at Bentley too!
Clauss found a prospective exchange student in Vienna.
A lesson from abroad
Using the Difference to Make a Difference One out of every four American children under the age of 18 goes to bed hungry. Take a second to read that statistic again. 25% of the children in America, a First World nation, do not have access to enough food. The issue is far more prevalent than I had ever imagined and it has made me take notice of all the waste that occurs. While studying abroad at Bond University in Australia during the fall of 2012, I learned that students had the option of donating their leftover meal plan money to charity. Their donations helped fund the Bond Sony Foundation Children’s Holiday Camp, which is completely free for the 25 disabled children who attend each year. Currently at Bentley University, meals and discretionary dollars are not transferable semester to semester and cannot be assigned to others. For this reason many students
aimlessly spend their leftover discretionary money at the end of each semester on extra soda, chips, or candy for the sake of not letting it go to waste. Other students may simply forget and end up leaving campus without depleting their funds. After hearing the startling statistic depicting the number of hungry children, I think it is crucial for Bentley University and its students to work together to make a difference. With approval by Bentley administration, we could start a program in which students can donate their leftover discretionary money to a local homeless shelter or food bank. There could even be an option for students to donate money throughout the year to provide food for those suffering from hunger. Did you really need that Mein Bowl at 2 a.m. last weekend? Wouldn’t it have been much more satisfying to be able to
help someone in need? Learning to make small changes in habits, such as using a reusable bottle instead of purchasing water, can leave students with extra money and give them the opportunity to help others. The University of California, Los Angeles, started a similar program in 2009 called Swipes for the Homeless. The program started with students using their meal “swipe” for to-go food that their peers would then hand-deliver to the homeless. After establishing a partnership with the dining services at UCLA, meal swipes could then be directly transferred into non-perishable goods. According to the Swipes for the Homeless website, over 100,000 pounds of food have been donated in Los Angeles since January 2012 as a result of the program. Swipes for the Homeless was also recognized by President Obama
as a “Campus Champion of Change.” I understand that the cost of the Bentley meal plan goes towards the upkeep of facilities as well. I have also learned that when determining the price of the meal plan, administration also considers the cost of heat, light, custodians, and other factors. However, if we initiated this program, Bentley could still retain the money from unused meal swipes each week. It would focus mainly on the discretionary cash aspect of the meal plan. The program seems fitting with Bentley’s dedication to social responsibility. Even our dining services website focuses on a community experience with “a shared sense of environmental and social responsibility.” The initiative could be paired with the Bentley Service-Learning Center to combine it with academic research on the issue of hunger and the Office of Sustainability to make
Rachael Dempsey A senior majoring in IDCC.
students more conscious of food waste on campus. From before even learning to talk, we are taught to share and be kind to others. We must not lose sight of these lessons as we grow older. By putting this issue of hunger at the forefront with the implementation of the suggested program, Bentley students may be inspired to become more proactive. It may start off small, with students simply donating the few dollars they have leftover, but has potential to make a far greater impact. By making all of us more aware of the issue and conscious of our own decisions, we can spark a movement and begin changing the statistics.