Social Equity // Task Force Leaders: Emma Winegar, winegar@augsburg.edu and Maya Keith, keith@augsburg.edu
Social Equity is about ensuring equal opportunities and rights for all. Some of our recent achievements include creating healthy recipe books with quick meals students can make in their dorm rooms, creating posters for residence halls with health services information, and sponsoring a donation drive for clothing and gently used electronics and furniture for the local Salvation Army. Our task force also sponsored Homeless Youth Awareness Week at Augsburg.
This year, we are focusing our efforts on awareness of the anti-marriage amendment on the Minnesota ballot in 2012. We are actively working to oppose it, and in doing so have collected over 200 pledges from the Augsburg community (including President Pribbenow!) to vote "NO" on the amendment question next year. The first week of November we hosted a training in collaboration with Minnesotans United for All Families on messaging and building coalitions to defeat the anti-marriage amendment next fall. Upcoming events include a No Hate Night where we will show a documentary about LGBT-targeted bullying and share stories of why marriage equality is important for Minnesota. Join us!
Environment // Task Force Leader: Andrew Orrison, orrison@augsburg.edu
This year, the Environment Task Force sponsored Sustainability Awareness Month at Augsburg, where each week represented a different environmental initiative. The first week in November centered on clean air. We educated students on alternative forms of transportation, including biking and how to use the Metro Transit system. Along with this, we collected over 150 postcards and 90 phone calls urging Senator Klobuchar to protect the clean air act that is currently under attack. Our second week involved education on water use and a petition to Ban the Bottle, an initiative to stop the sales of bottled water on campus. We executed a blind taste test of bottled water and tap water, during which students expressed their preference for Minneapolis tap water! The last week of our sustainability awareness month focuses on composting and recycling practices at Augsburg College, which kicked off a successful campaign to get compostable containers at the on-campus food services.
Past victories include of our Environment Task Force:
-Removal of toxic herbicides on campus lawn
-Implementation of the use of bio-diesel on campus
-Awareness of local resources for bikers
- Grassroots pressure on Minnesota corporations to stop using dirty Tar Sands oil
-Passing the Minneapolis Business Recycling Ordinance
Economic Justice // Task Force Leaders: Roque Lester, lestermc@augsburg.edu and Becky Dickinson, dickinso@augsburg.edu
The Economic Justice Task Force addresses the causes of economic inequalities locally while working to improve our global impact. To realize this goal we have persuaded our campus bookstore to carry Alta Gracia, a line of sweatshop-free, fair trade clothing, and created a buyer’s guide for student groups searching for fair trade and organic clothing options. This semester we created a guide to local grocery stores for students that describes their labor and recycling practices, presents organic and fair trade options and provides price comparison. This year we are endeavoring to implement an administrative policy supporting socially conscious purchasing by our food service. We are also initiating our campus’s campaign for responsible banking, in which we are encouraging and helping students to switch over from large corporate banks to local credit unions. Our main interest is to foster critical thought and action in what students and Augsburg College do with their money.
