By Carter Santini ’15
THE ROUNDUP
Each year the Summit on Human Dignity’s workshop day tops my list of favorite days of the semester.
The concept is amazing, getting to learn in depth Summit-related knowledge from experts about what interests the individual. The most novel part is that there is a workshop to connect each student’s passion to the issue.
Sadly, if you’re not a senior who gets the signup link a few hours early then there is a good chance you won’t get to see the workshop that interests you the most.
Even if you are senior, the list of presenters can overwhelm and there’s just no way to see everything you want to see.
If these issues were fixed by either having two days of workshops or making the day a full day of presentations, students would get vastly more out of the Summit.
I understand the scheduling headaches that the Office of Faith and Justice and the administration goes through, but if students are getting a full, deep and connected experience out of the Summit it’s worth a few missed periods.
Students who didn’t get their choice of presentations are slightly helped by the promise of a conversation in their fifth period about the day. The conversation is a nice touch and leads to a forum for debate and discussion. But the students are getting a second hand recount of the workshop, hardly the same thing as hearing professionals speak.
The other issue with this system is it encourages students to just go to wherever they want.
As it stands now, the sign-up system isn’t respected as it should be. While many students are lawful and follow their printed schedule there are many who go to what interests them even if they didn’t sign up.
This leads to overcrowded lectures or half full classrooms.
Overcrowded rooms are not ideal for getting the most interaction out of a speaker and half full classrooms make it look like the Brophy community doesn’t care about the talk.
Those students should not be punished or looked down upon; they’re simply attempting to get the most out of their Summit, as we all should be striving towards as well.
This year was the first year where I got all three workshops I wanted, and it was awesome. I couldn’t help but feel like I had missed out for three years though.
If the Summit committee made this minor change more students would be engaged and develop a passion for the issue.
