Smith - Week 6 - Holmes Cultural Diversity Center

Activities:
- Attended staff meeting
- Continued working on PAWS Program Scavenger Hunt
- Emailed departments on campus about participating in scavenger hunt
- Attended Fatherless Son Initiative meeting

Reflection:
This past week I spent a lot of time working on the scavenger hunt. In the past, the focus of the scavenger hunt was to familiarize students with campus and MSU history. This year we thought it would be a good idea to help students locate resources on campus to help them throughout their college career. Once students locate a certain department on campus, we are hoping that a representative from the department will give the students a brief explanation of the services they provide. Students face many challenges, and some simply do not know where to go to find help with their challenges. With this program, we are hoping to familiar students with the location of the resources and what each resource can provide the students. This way, student will know exactly what department to seek out and the exact location when problems arise.

Something new the HCDC is trying to do this year is to reach out to male students who lacked some kind of father figure in their life. These students will include those who never had a father, lost their father in some way, or had a father but he was no there for his son in some way. Last week, Cedric, Tim Fair (Student Coordinator in the office), and I met with some male student representatives from a few student organizations to gather their thoughts on the program. The ideas and thoughts for the programs from the students were very eye-opening. These students and their perspectives are going to make this program special. We asked to the students to go back to their respective organizations and gather more ideas and thoughts from their peers for the program. I am really excited for the direction this program is headed in after only having one meeting about it. We are looking to invite more organizations to participate in the meetings to add more diverse perspectives on the issue.