Dear Grinnellians,

Only five weeks remain until I will (fingers crossed) meet Raynard Kington and several more of you at our shiny, new amphitheater, where I will receive that fancy piece of paper which is, allegedly, the whole point, the goal, or at least the symbol, of the period of my life between August 2008 and May 2012. Five is a pretty small number, relatively speaking, so I have to confess I’m feeling a little nostalgic.

Grinnell has given me a lot. Some of that is wrapped up with the words “social justice.” The moments I’ve felt most proud to be a Grinnellian were those in which I felt that I was part of a community in which love, respect and care for one’s fellow human beings, both on campus and around the world, were valued. That feeling, and the sense of empowerment that came along with it, are a gift that I have received from this community.

Grinnell is also a place where I’ve been, at times, incredibly frustrated. One thing that’s been frustrating is the struggle to maintain some sense of history in this rapidly changing environment. More than a few times, I’ve watched other students reinvent the wheel because they had no knowledge of what other students had accomplished. This has been one of the concerns that we on the Voicebox Council have spent time thinking about this semester.

That’s why we’ve been so happy to work with Sam Mulopulos ’14 to organize a social justice open forum/think tank-style discussion which will take place on Monday, April 16 at 8:00 PM in Quad. We hope to talk about the history of activism at Grinnell, resources available for service and/or anti-oppression work, and what social justice can and should mean for Grinnellians going forward. I hope that many of you will join us next Monday. I hope that social justice can continue to mean for Grinnellians what it has meant for me.

—Robin Wetherill ’12