The second House Dinner of the semester brought together students, faculty and staff for an intellectual discussion.
More than 150 Global Neighborhood residents along with faculty and staff members gathered in Lakeside Dining Hall on Tuesday, Oct. 7, to discuss the influence of children’s television programming on girls worldwide.
The discussion was the second of six Global Neighborhood House Dinners planned for the year, which bring students, faculty and staff together for intellectual discussions around a globally themed meal.
Naeemah Clark and Lee Bush, faculty members in the School of Communications, led a presentation titled, “G is for Girl: How Television Teaches Girls to be Women.” Clark shared television clips from popular children’s shows along with statistics on violence against girls and women around the world.
Guided by Bush and Clark, faculty and staff then led small-group discussions about the complexities of developing an ideal female character for children’s media. Some students shared their groups’ thoughts with the larger group.
At the conclusion of the event, Assistant Director of Residence Life Rei Haycraft presented President Leo M. Lambert, who participated as a small-group discussion leader, with a gift from the Global Neighborhood: a framed photo of the new Global Commons and the five logos that represent each neighborhood house.
The Global Neighborhood House Dinners are part of a campus-wide initiative to strengthen student connections to Elon through deeper learning experiences in residential settings. Bridging departments together to foster interdisciplinary discussions, the dinner included faculty and staff discussants from the School of Communications, the Department of World Languages and Culture, Belk Library and the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center.
This year’s theme for the Global Neighborhood is Gender and Sexuality Across Cultures. All six dinners and other neighborhood events will engage with this topic from various disciplinary viewpoints.
Upcoming dinners include presenters from the Department of History and Geography, the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center and the School of Law.