Written by Whitney Skillen, Positive Relationships Specialist, Student Wellness Center
As we dive into the new academic year, the Student Wellness Center is focusing on a theme that’s both inspiring and deeply personal: Connecting with Our Purpose. This fall, we’re inviting you to reflect on what truly matters to you, especially when it comes to your relationships. College is a time of incredible growth, and the connections you build here can shape not just your time on campus, but your entire life. So, let’s start with a simple yet powerful question: What parts of your relationships are most meaningful to you?
Why Authenticity Matters
When we talk about meaningful relationships, we often think about trust, support, and shared experiences. But there’s one key element that ties all these together: authenticity. Being authentic means being true to who you are, sharing your real thoughts and feelings, and allowing others to do the same. It’s about showing up as your true self, even when it feels a bit vulnerable. Authenticity isn’t just important for your relationships—it’s a crucial part of connecting with your purpose.
When you’re authentic in your relationships, you’re more likely to attract people who appreciate and value you for who you truly are. These are the connections that can help you grow, challenge you to think differently, and support you when times get tough. Authentic relationships also give you the space to explore your passions and values without fear of judgment, helping you to clarify what really matters to you.
Reflecting on Meaningful Relationships
Take a moment to think about the relationships in your life—friends, family, mentors, or even casual acquaintances. What makes some of these connections feel more significant than others? Is it the way they make you feel understood? The trust you’ve built over time? Or maybe it’s the way these relationships align with your values and the person you want to become.
Here are a few simple actions and thought exercises to help you deepen your understanding of your relationships and their connection to your purpose:
Identify Your Core Values: Write down the values that matter most to you—things like honesty, kindness, growth, or creativity. Then, think about how these values show up in your relationships. Are there certain people who help you live out these values more fully?
Reflect on Your Interactions: After spending time with someone, ask yourself how you felt during and after the interaction. Did you feel energized, understood, and supported? Or did you feel drained or misunderstood? Use these reflections to guide which relationships you want to nurture.
Practice Vulnerability: Try opening up to someone you trust about something that’s important to you—your dreams, fears, or even a small insecurity. Notice how this deepens the connection and allows for more authentic communication.
Set Boundaries Where Needed: Authenticity also means being clear about what you need and what you won’t tolerate. If a relationship consistently feels one-sided or draining, it might be time to set some boundaries or reevaluate its place in your life.
Journal About Your Relationships: Take time to write about the relationships that matter most to you. What do you appreciate about these connections? How do they help you stay true to yourself? Journaling can offer valuable insights into the role these relationships play in your journey towards purpose.
Moving Forward with Purpose
As you explore these exercises, remember that finding your purpose is a journey, not a destination. By connecting authentically with others, you’re not just building meaningful relationships—you’re also taking important steps towards understanding and living out your purpose. This fall, let’s commit to being true to ourselves and to the people who make our lives richer and more fulfilling.
Stay tuned for more resources, tips, and stories on how you can continue to connect with your purpose throughout the fall term. We’re excited to be on this journey with you!
When I was younger, I feared problem solving and decision making. I hated being paralyzed by the stress of “doing the right thing” while also wanting to get through whatever challenge faced me as quickly as I could in order to go back to a state of contentment and certainty. Instead of seeing challenges as opportunities for growth or learning, I saw them as tests that I was destined to fail over and over again.
I’ve only recently realized that I hold the power to face challenging situations with intentionality and control. The key to doing this is by developing a deeper awareness of my needs and understanding how I will proceed with assertively, yet compassionately, protecting the space I need to pause and respond with intentionality in a given situation. Setting boundaries always seemed like something that had a singular and ultimately self-serving benefit. I realize now, however, that boundary setting can be employed as an active strategy that empowers me to handle challenging situations with greater clarity and confidence.
The ways in which setting boundaries allows us to separate ourselves from challenging situations and proceed intentionally are plentiful and include (but are not limited to):
Preventing Over-Commitment: Knowing what you can handle and how much of it you can handle goes a long way in avoiding being overwhelmed. Limiting responsibility greatly reduces burn-out and the feeling of being stuck in challenging situations. I know this one can be hard, especially at a place like Dartmouth where the pressure to have a laundry list of achievements can feel almost mandatory, but remember that the key to success lies within knowing your limits.
Building Emotional Distance: The thing that makes the challenges we face in life so difficult to confront sometimes are the emotions that come with them. Anger. Fear. Sadness. These are all valid and often unavoidable emotions we have to experience in life but that doesn’t mean they have to consume us. There are so many issues worth caring about, issues that people should care about, but it’s impossible for one single person to solve every problem in the world. Simply acknowledging that not every problem is yours to solve and detaching yourself from the ones that are not aligned with your immediate priorities opens up more space for the problems most pressing in your life.
Practicing Self-Care: The concept of self-care gets touted as the magic fix to all of the stresses of life which can make the suggestion of it seem hollow. But the truth is that the prioritization of your physical and mental health has a profound impact on your ability to handle the stress that accompanies challenging situations. I think about this a lot when I reflect on my work in sexual violence prevention. I know for a fact that if I wasn’t checking in with myself regularly to ensure I’m doing okay and not on the brink of collapse, I wouldn’t be able to do my work effectively or even at all. What does self-care look like to you? Is it pausing to breathe? Or finding joy in gentle movement or a creative outlet?
While that wasn’t an exhaustive list of different ways to set boundaries and how they give you the power to handle challenging situations, it is a good place to start. Where are you already setting boundaries and how are they serving you? Where might you need to start setting them and in what manner?
“The purpose of eating is to eat.” – Thích Nhất Hạnh
When I was a child, my mom brought me a popsicle when she returned from the supermarket in the summer. I always took my time to eat it. I remembered eating it in the sun in our backyard, feeling the orange-flavored ice melting with the cream inside my mouth. I was so happy. I was just there with the popsicle, looking at the sky, the grass, and the flowers around me. Sometimes, the ice melted too fast, dripping to the ground, and I shared a bit of the popsicle with the ants on the ground. I could be there with my popsicle because I had no worries and was carefree. I had nothing to plan about. I was just there, simply enjoying my popsicle and the summer weather.
It is still possible to eat meals so peacefully and joyfully, just like how I savored my popsicle as a child. You may have the impression that you have lost that popsicle, that cookie, that chocolate of your childhood. But it is always there in your heart. I also used to think that taking the time to eat mindfully felt like a luxury. Later, I learned that it is counterproductive to eat mindlessly. When I pause and eat mindfully, I relax and enjoy my food more. I feel more nourished afterward. Now, I see mindful eating as self-care. We all deserve a break like this to pause and savor our food.
Mindful eating is an important mindfulness practice. But it is simple.
We sit at the table with our food. We put away our phones and close our laptops and books. If we are with other people, we wait for them to be seated and have their food.
We take a few deep breaths. We may even silently repeat a mantra while breathing, “breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile.”
We can also look at our food and how colorful and nutritious it is. We may feel gratitude coming from our hearts, appreciating the care and effort it takes to have this meal on this table.
We can look at the people we are sharing this meal and this moment and smile at each other. Wishing them to enjoy their meal.
Once we start eating, we can bring that attentiveness to the food: the taste, the temperature, the texture, and the movement of our mouths and hands.
There is no need to eat the whole meal this way. Just a few bites of eating with mindfulness would already make the entire experience more enjoyable.
I also found these books helpful when learning about mindful eating and mindful living
I learned from experience that how tasty the food is directly linked to how mindful I am eating it. Please give it a try 🙂 Bon appetite!
Author Bio: Zhuoya is a third-year PhD student in the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences program. She researches how mindfulness impacts college students’ well-being. Zhuoya is also a lay practitioner of mindfulness who practices in the Plum Village Tradition established by Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. Zhuoya loves grabbing mindful meals or coffee alone or with friends. If you’d like to join her, please email her at zhuoya.zhang.gr@dartmouth.edu
This poem was written by the attendees of the Mindful Immersion in Nature program on June 14th, 2024. The participants, hailing from all corners of the Dartmouth community, were asked to contribute one line of poetry reflecting on their experience immersing in a wild place on Dartmouth’s campus together.
Nature is presence, go out Mosquitos in trees, and ants in grass Tiny fairy house blood sucking mosquitos Move you body, love you life, you are here now Dance this Life And so it begins, this becoming, this heart inducing love Free, free oh so free to just be
The next Mindful Immersion in Nature event will take place July 12th. Hope to see you there!
Happy Week 9! As a ‘24 seasoned Dartmouth student, I know how hard this time of term can be. Here I suggest a few quick tips (based off of my five-minute article that came out last week) for practicing Everyday Action!
In order for you to train your mind, you must make yourself more vulnerable (much like how when working out, you need to make your body uncomfortable to grow stronger), and allow others to be vulnerable too. It is important to find a community that you trust to do this important work–it could be friends, a religious group, Greek life…whatever feels right!
Journaling can be an effective way to solidify your progress, whatever that looks like for you. I find it helpful to approach journaling without judgment, and overtime you will find out what methods work best for you!
Find voices that move you, and integrate them into your life! I keep sticky notes on the walls of my room where I know I’ll look, reminding me of the values I strive to live by. You can also use apps like Headspace, which send daily reminders to be mindful.
Sometimes, you get so stuck in your own cycles of thought that you don’t even realize there is another, potentially healthier, perspective out there. The first step in discovering these cycles is being mindful (journaling and meditation are great for this) and opening up your heart to others. For example, I know many of us high-achieving students beat ourselves up over lots of stuff. Realizing that there is another way of thinking that isn’t shaming yourself for needing rest, or indulging in a dessert, or just for being who you are, is a difficult but important first step towards radical self love.
Ericka Asmus ’24
Reflection Question: What is something you are working on now that can be broken down into smaller, manageable steps?
This poem was written by the attendees of the Mindful Immersion in Nature program on May 10th, 2024. The participants, hailing from all corners of the Dartmouth community, were asked to contribute one line of poetry reflecting on their experience immersing in a wild place on Dartmouth’s campus together.
The Yellow Warbler flew into a time of cosmic insignificance Rainfall as sweet and pure as music The smell of pine needles, soil Bright green leaves so fresh and new Warmth of friends around, old and new Springtime in the mountain t’áá attsò shikéédéé: Beauty all around me all the sounds and diversity feels welcoming and calm Blossoming together, plants and people We are home, here and Now
Over this past Spring Break, I attended the event of a lifetime, a culmination of the dedication of countless people towards radical self love. It was the merging of intersecting marginalized identities to create a space for loving ourselves and each other. This event was an adaptive fashion show where I and five other women with a rare disease called Poland Syndrome were celebrated for our experiences. Poland Syndrome is a birth defect that leaves individuals with missing or underdeveloped ribs, breast tissue, pectoral muscle, and/or hands on one side of their body. The disability is physical, but due to its nature it also manifests itself in the psyche of those who have it, especially women. I can’t speak on behalf of the other women at the show, but I can tell my own story.
I was diagnosed shortly after I was born when my parents took me to the children’s hospital because I was too weak to crawl. The doctor told my parents that if I didn’t start strengthening my affected side soon, I might not be able to use it for the rest of my life. My family tells me stories from my first years where I was “catching up” with my peers: falling off the merry-go-round and hurting myself, falling on my head countless times at gymnastics practice…I was too young to remember but these events impacted me nevertheless.
Luckily, with enough hard work and support, I was able to grow up with limited physical restrictions and have actually become known for my physical strength. But as I made my way through puberty and I watched in horror as only one of my breasts grew, I realized that my disability expanded beyond the physical: the real struggle was living in a society that told me my body was wrong, immoral. While my physical and psychological pain were largely disregarded, I was told many times that my deformity should not be visible to onlookers, like I owed them the comfort of “normal” breasts.
I still remember visiting the plastic surgeon when I was eleven, the doctor marking me up, taking pictures of the bare chest I resented, and talking to my mother like I wasn’t even there. Consistently throughout my life society has told me in one way or another that I should be ashamed of my body. I can’t visit a doctor without them bringing up plastic surgery. The prosthetics I’ve been given serve no function except to give the impression that I have two breasts. I’ve gone to a physical therapist for back pain before and the first thing he did is give his opinion on whether or not I should have plastic surgery.
These are the prosthetics given to women with Poland Syndrome and breast cancer survivors. I haven’t worn mine in years.
People are often in shock and disbelief at how I’ve been treated because of my body. I remember changing in the corner in locker rooms while girls with perfectly normal breasts complain that they are too small or uneven. Being called names like “concave” and being told “It’s not that bad” by people I thought I could trust. People have weaponized my own body against me, using my sensitivity to their advantage. I soon did resent my body: I held it like a secret so close to my heart that I couldn’t talk about my birth defect to anyone without tearing up, not even my mom. I did things to my body that reflected this hatred and formed habits that took tremendous effort to unlearn.
When I had dug myself so deep in a hole, when I saw nothing but darkness, I peered up and saw a small light up above. For my college application essay, I decided to write about my experience with Poland Syndrome for the very first time. I’d never put my thoughts into words or given myself credit for all that I’d gone through. Sharing my experience filled me with more joy than I’d ever felt before. Such a huge weight had been lifted off of me, I felt like I was flying. I now had a clear path for climbing out of my pit of despair: being true to myself required an enormous amount of vulnerability, but the reward was that I would be liberated from shame.
I’ve spent my time at Dartmouth intentionally training myself to become comfortable with who I am even if I face disapproval. It started with telling my close friends, and then professors, and then the world. I’ve applied my unique experience to all sorts of classes, from Indigenous History of the Andes to Product Design to Environmental Chemistry to Black Feminist Thought. Through these courses I’ve gotten the amazing opportunity to gain insight about myself that I was lacking through direct representation. When I saw no one that looked like me in the mass media, I became that person. This journey was by no means easy: I learned some things that have brought me great pain and have set back my progress, but not hiding my body has become an absolute necessity and a reminder of my persistence and heart.
If I lacked the courage or motivation to seek out others with Poland Syndrome online, I never would have found out about the fashion show, and I definitely wouldn’t have felt confident in sharing my experience with the world. This trip was not only the first time I would meet others with Poland Syndrome in person, but it was also my first time traveling internationally, and I was doing it alone. I couldn’t have done it without the support of the Student Wellness Center where I’ve become a regular for Wellness Check-Ins when I need guidance or even just someone to listen.
Like I said earlier, I can’t speak for the experiences of my friends with Poland Syndrome, but it is safe to say that no matter who you are, it is not easy to be a woman with only one breast in a society where a woman’s value is based on her appearance. Spending time with all of these incredible women, the collective love we’ve devoted to ourselves is unimaginable.
(Left) Posing with Lilly Alfonso and (Right) showing off my strength in a dress designed specifically for my body and interests.
Besides just getting to spend time with my new friends, we also got to work with internationally recognized Malawian fashion designer Lilly Alfonso and her students. We collaborated with them to create outfits that celebrated our differences and promoted them professionally. Lilly’s work is dedicated to promoting her rich African culture and works to uplift young people in her communities with the 100 Year Plan. The students we worked with were named Wongani, Joshua, and Hope, and besides creating some incredible outfits, they approached us with an open heart and accepting ears, a godsend.
The fashion show reached beyond the individualistic notions of self love we often hear about: we used this event to unite in our experiences against the forces that make it difficult for marginalized people to exist in this world. Our identities ranged widely, but we met each other with compassion and support, a really beautiful and revolutionary thing. It is radical to promote self love when society tells you to be ashamed of your true self. I find comfort in knowing how intentional the fashion show was on an individual and organizational level.
An important tool for taking care of myself to become the best change-maker possible has been meditation, but it is not always easy. I really struggle with body scans; my relationship with my body is complicated, and attempting to appreciate my chest brings up a lot of uncomfortable emotions which bring me out of concentration. It is important to push your comfort zone, but it becomes too much and my trauma response lingers with me for the rest of the day. Besides that, I sometimes wonder how accessible certain phrases are to disabled folks. Through talking with others I’ve found that I’m not alone in my concerns, that fortunately there are body scans out there for those with trauma sensitivities and ranging abilities. One recent meditation directed me to view pain with curiosity, as a sensation. This has helped tremendously, as I’m usually experiencing back pain that can send me spiraling if I focus on it. My practice is still a work in progress, and so is my relationship with my body. Loving yourself can be really hard, and the best thing you can do is help to build a world that is safe and welcoming for all bodies.
Historically I’ve struggled to speak up about my experiences because when I have, nobody wants to listen to my frustrations; they’d rather keep it to a feel-good story about me personally overcoming adversity. In reality, my experience encompasses an existence in a body I am persistently told I should change. I recently read The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde, which chronicles the loss of her right breast as a result of breast cancer. She provided rare and valuable perspectives, and serves as a reminder that anyone with breasts is at risk of losing them. She reminds me that “silence has never brought us anything of worth.” The romantic notion of bottling up my pain is what almost ended me. My silence would be complacency in a world that rejects bodies outside of the norm; my silence would be a loss for us all. I’m proud of myself for speaking up even when there’s an overbearing voice in my head telling me that nobody cares.
If you see a little bit of yourself in my story, even if you don’t have Poland Syndrome, I recommend a book that I’m reading called The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor. If you aren’t up for a whole book, she also has a wonderful Ted Talk on the art of radical self love. If you are struggling with body image issues, I want to remind you to a) treat yourself to some rigorous self compassion, and b) understand that your struggles are a part of a system that profits off of body hatred that we should all work to dismantle. You are allowed to honor your anger and discomfort. Real self love is about feeling the good and the bad and acting with intention.
I’d also like to provide a big thanks to the Student Wellness Center and Center for Social Impact for their financial support, Lilly Alfonso and her students for being so wonderful to work with, the Birmingham Children’s hospital for hosting this event, and Sam Fillingham, the CEO of the UK Poland Syndrome Charity for supporting us all along the way. I’d also like to thank my friends and professors who have been so supportive and reminded me that my voice matters.
These are the phrases I associate most with failure. The blue light from my computer shines onto my irises and my mind plays a trick on me. Instead of the “Thank you for your interest” sentence on the page, I only see the following: “Sorry, we can’t give you this job or let you into this school because there are millions of people who are so much smarter and better than you and we picked one of those people instead of you. Have a nice life.”
My eyes swell up with tiny droplets that I try to swallow alongside a tightness in my chest. And then the doom thinking starts. I retrace my steps: Were there typos in my resume? Was my cover letter not well-written? Was I too loud during the interview? Or maybe I was too quiet? What did I do wrong? Or worse—What if other people find out I failed?
For most of us, failure is something we like to run away from. Maybe we haven’t really experienced failure before so anything other than success feels like a colossal defeat. Or perhaps we really really wanted whatever opportunity we applied for and started imagining our lives with that job or school or person. We started thinking about how hard we would laugh and how perfect everything would be with it. And then it starts to rain and we are left with a version of life we were not expecting.
I have long been perplexed by why failure stings so much and why we try to run away from it. For me at least, the reasons are twofold. First, I attach my self-worth to the things I do. Think about it. When people ask, “Tell me about yourself,” the answer is followed by the activities we do. Our occupations. Second, it just feels good to succeed (by our own definitions). The validation of “Congratulations!” is a dopamine rush. But failure is not something we can outrun. As much as it sucks, what if we embraced it? What if we chose to radically welcome it into our lives? Maybe, together, we can redefine failure.
It’s not easy and it will most definitely take practice but here is my short list of redefining failure, taking everyday action, and even failing forward toward the life that we want:
You’re allowed to sit in sadness. You can feel sad, angry, or frustrated when you fail. It’s a part of being human. Let yourself feel your feelings and process the rejection. Maybe that means being alone or listening to a certain kind of music. I personally love to go on a long drive by myself, cry, and blast Adele. Reflect: What’s gonna make you feel better? You know yourself better than anyone else.
Remind yourselfthat your worth as a human does not come from the internship you got, your GPA, or the failure in question. Whether it’s saying it out loud or writing it on paper, you are valuable and deserve love because of your character, and who you are as a person. Your kindness and energy, are not the numbers on your resume.
Seek out fun and joy. I know it may sound cliche but what if you picked up an activity just because it was fun? Who cares if you’re not good at it? What if you tried to intentionally pick up that hobby you know you won’t be perfect at and had fun failing at it? For me, this is skiing!
It’s easy to write, “embrace failure” on the page but so much harder to actually put it into practice. After all, it’s not fun to feel like you’re not good enough. But maybe the point of this all is to embrace the uncomfortable. The more we put ourselves out there and fail, the more of the world we see, and the further our brains expand.
Written by Andre Betancur, Power and Equity Specialist, Student Wellness Center
Dear Dartmouth,
Congratulations on making it halfway through the spring term! Continuing with our theme of “Everyday Action” and the idea of power, we want to remind you all that you have the ability to use your personal power to ensure that you’re taking care of yourselves. When we use our power to center our own sense of wellbeing, we gain a greater ability to help our friends and peers center their own wellbeing too. Making sure our wellbeing is tended to and highlighted is especially important as you all begin your midterms.
As the spring season makes itself known with April showers and cloudy days, let’s go through ways we can use our power to make sure we’re still giving ourselves the sunlight we need to continue blooming:
Begin connecting power and location. It’s important to understand that our power is often tied to the physical spaces we’re in. When we’re in spaces where we have more power, we often feel much more comfortable and relaxed within those spaces. Places you may feel you have more power and feel comfortable include your dorm, your favorite cafe, and the Student Wellness Center just to name a few. When possible, make sure you’re entering and inhabiting these spaces you feel comfortable in. It seems simple, but actively choosing to enter spaces where we feel powerful and comfortable is an action we can take to benefit our wellbeing.
Action takers and mold-breakers require rest too. We know that many of you are very active in a variety of ways including in academics, activism, and skill building. It can be fulfilling and satisfying to constantly achieve our goals and climb up the ladder of personal success, including in ways that others have never done before. However, if we’re constantly climbing without taking breaks, eventually we’ll fall. Use the power you have to remind yourself to take breaks, unwind, and catch your breath. Self-care breaks look different for all of us, engage in the activities, or lack thereof, that allow you to decompress and regain the strength to continue climbing your own personal ladder.
After we self-care, let’s encourage some group-care. After we’ve engaged in some personal self-care and feel recharged, we’re more equipped and have the capacity to encourage our friends and peers to engage in self-care too. Being an action taker and mold-breaker when it comes to promoting self-care is crucial in supporting the health and wellbeing of our community. Be a leader and role model when it comes to self-care, lend a helping hand to your friends and offer them a break from climbing up their ladder. Invite them to join you in self-care activities like going on walks, listening to music, and attending fun on-campus events.
We hope you all take advantage of your power to initiate some rest and relaxation for yourselves and your peers for the rest of the term. As another reminder, it is still Sexual Assault Action Month (SAAM), and it’s especially important for those of us taking the steps to end sexual violence on campus to step back and engage in self-care.
Written by Andre Betancur, Power and Equity Specialist, Student Wellness Center
Dear Dartmouth,
As we move into the third week of the spring semester and into the month April, we would like to remind everyone that April is Sexual Assault Action Month (SAAM). Following the theme of “Everyday Action”, we believe that each and every member of our community holds within them the potential to utilize their own personal power to positively influence the lives and behaviors of others, especially in moments where sexual violence can happen. We recognize that many students may feel a sense of powerlessness and have no idea how to even begin recognizing their own power, let alone utilizing it for good. Luckily, our Sexual Violence Prevention Project team has been working on how to teach you all to identify where you hold power and how you can use it for good.
Here are some key tips for recognizing and utilizing power:
Understand that power can look and feel different for all of us. You may think of power on an unfathomably large scale or only recognize power when someone with formal credentials (like our President) is using their power in ways which affect everyone. However, power also exists on an individual level and there’s a good chance you’re using your power in ways you’re not even aware of. Some examples of ways Dartmouth students use their power include:
Giving directions to a lost student
Referring friends to campus resources
Being a UGA and looking out for residents
Understand that power is contextual. Our perception or reality of having power or not having power can change many different times throughout our day and is based on a variety of factors including our identities, the location we’re in, and our level of knowledge or comfort in any given situation.
Know that you’re not alone in wanting to use your power to prevent sexual violence and change the culture at Dartmouth. Trying to tackle an issue like sexual violence is not an easy feat and certainly not something any of us can do alone. Even though so many of us are doing our part to prevent sexual violence on campus, it can still be tiring work. When we bravely choose to use our power for good, we have to remember to give ourselves the time and space to recharge and recenter ourselves. Making sure we do take that time to be kind to ourselves and engage in some self-care, we greatly reduce the chance of burnout and ensure we have the capacity to continue charging forward in our efforts to create greater culture change on campus.
We believe that each and every member of our community holds within them the potential to utilize their own personal power to positively influence the lives and behaviors of others, especially in moments where sexual violence can happen.
Now that we’ve sprung into Sexual Assault Action Month, we all have an opportunity to take the concept of “Everyday Action” and put it into practice. Begin identifying where you and others hold power, recognize how that power can be used for good, and know that those moments when you use your power for good, no matter how small, help create real palpable change on our campus.