ARC-IU discusses wellness, future

How do you build a better future? Start by talking about it.

ARC-IU sponsored their “Who’s Responsible for the Future” roundtable forum Monday night in the Indiana Memorial Union Frangipani Room.

ARC-IU co-chairs Joan Linton and Deborah Getz facilitated the discussion.

“We are concerned about the tone and tenor of public discourse,” Linton said. “We want to use campus to develop civil, evidence-based and productive discourse. It’s democracy in action.”

The forum had about 100 students, faculty and members of the community. These participants were asked to sign up before hand and submit topics that interested them.

Once topics for the discussion had been selected, participants were asked to sign up for their top three, and were then sorted into tables of about eight participants to discuss the specific issues.

“Each table includes a moderator and a notetaker to archive the discussion,” Linton said. “The notes will then be uploaded to our website, and some of the topics will be blogged about.”

“Electronic media can be very useful for discussing some issues, but others need a face-to-face approach,” she said.

Junior Byron Parker moderated the table discussing social media.

“Basically my job is to give a short speech at the beginning to introduce the topic, and then let the others take over and offer their views,” Parker said. “I just push the conversation in the right direction. They do most of the talking.”

Following Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel’s speech about the importance of such discourse, the discussions began.

“We’re emphasizing cross-generation conversations,” she said. “So much of conversation is segregated by age, and there is no reason to do that.”

Despite the goal of all-age discussions, many of the tables were split along generation lines, with the youth populating topics such as student indebtedness and health and wellness, while more adults filled the tables of local and global literacies and IU and corporate responsibility.

The discussions were split into two sections, with the first part having the groups share their perspectives, find common ground on the issues and come up with a solution idea. Part two was meant to have the groups translate their idea into a practical plan.
Freshman Megan Day discovered the forum through the Global Village at Foster Quad and the Hutton Honors College.

“I think as a freshman I’m pretty ignorant of others’ views, so I’m hoping to learn something here,” Day said. “Learning can happen inside the classroom, but even more outside of it.”

The forum partnered with the College of Arts and Sciences as part of Themester “Good Behavior, Bad Behavior: Molecules to Morality.” Linton said she hopes the event is the start of a continued discussion of how to improve the future.

“We want to make this a discussion for the first Friday of every month,” she said. “We’re just getting started.”