Building Campus Community Cohesion: One Dialogue Event at a Time

I had the honor and privilege of attending Dr. Elesha Ruminski’s presentation on Focus on Social Sustainability: How FSU is Leading Dialogue and Deliberation in Our Region. Dr. Ruminski is an Associate Professor in the department of Communication Studies and Coordinator of the Leadership Studies Minor. I was joined by the LEAD 401 citizen leader class and a member of the Frostburg community. To start the presentation, we had an ice breaker and Dr. Ruminski posed the question, what is social sustainability? The audience, including myself were trumped by the question. After, Dr. Ruminski proceeded to state the importance of social sustainability as well as define it. The two items covered were dialogue and deliberation session and the role of communication leadership in leading regional change.

Dr. Ruminski spoke about one of the many topics surrounding Frostburg, the dialogue between the campus and community, more importantly “building campus and community relationships through facilitated dialogue events.” A few examples of this endeavor include the recent hanging of the Frostburg State flag along Main Street, the paw prints on Bowery Street, and the work on making off-campus housing safe following recent incidences. She spoke about the goal of the Communication Studies Major and Leadership Studies Minor which is integrated learning, building relationship, empowering individuals, and partnership throughout the state of Maryland. One partnership Dr. Ruminski and the Communication Leadership Lab established is with The Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle.

The Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle is an organization based in Baltimore, Maryland who focuses on issues pertaining to diverse topics involving the African American community. With their help and the help of many others Dr. Ruminski and the FSU Leadership Studies Residency Program will be hosting a facilitated public discussion called Rural and Urban Values which is this Wednesday, April 19 from 6-8:30pm in the Frostburg Community Center. The purpose is finding out how do our cultures vary and intersect. More importantly can “the event prompt further discussion”. With the growing diversity in Frostburg’s campus, an event formed to give the opportunity for students and community members a chance to collaborate on making Frostburg the campus and Frostburg the town one whole entity that works together is a great idea.

Dr. Ruminski and I outside her presentation room

To close out the presentation we had a dialogue discussion on the questions, what is Frostburg State University doing to provide social sustainability and what can it do to better build social sustainability with the community. The responses were, making students aware of social sustainability, embedding some form of social sustainability in our coursework or our Orie classes. My personal response is, since Frostburg seems to be big on high school athletic events, honoring a Frostburg community member at the university’s athletic events is a great way to invite more community members and build relationships.

Below is the Communication Leadership Lab site, for more on what Dr. Elesha Ruminski and her Leadership Lab students are doing this is the perfect site to visit. It gives more in-depth descriptions on the work that has occurred and what future plans are being established. http://frostburgdialogue.org/