Unity

A good friend Sarah Szweda posted the following link on Facebook a few years back and tagged me along with some other folks. In her post she pitched recreating this experience at our college, and while it took a few years to materialize, I'm thrilled that it finally did.

Last week the Eastern Campus Common Reading committee recreated the unity project as a way to kick-off a series of co-curriculars surrounding the book Carry On: A Story of Resilience, Redemption, and an Unlikely Family. The event went off without a hitch, and it was AWESOME! I can't do the activity any more justice than what you see in the video (so please check it out) and by sharing the images below.

My colleague John Rasel and I setting up the event and holding an identity marker that describes one of our "common threads".

Getting students involved in the process.

Helping students string!

Friend and colleague Casey Sweeney with her English class at the event.

Faculty member Haidy Kamel adding her story through the string.

We also had huge whiteboards where students could add more 'identity markers' to the mix.

I love some of these end images:

We had over 300 participants and sooo many requests to leave up this "installation" piece that we had to extend our pole rentals by another week :)

Here is the link to the official Unity Pole site if you are interested in bringing this inspiring event to your school or community: http://www.unityproject.net/

Thank you to everyone who participated. It was so beautiful seeing the canopy of experiences as it was being constructed.