This Week:
The Advocates for Diverse Abilities group on campus held a kickoff meeting last Friday. The A.D.A., founded last year, is both an affinity group and a student advocacy group coordinated through CaMD and the Student Accessibility Services. The first meeting was open to all members of the Andover community. It included snacks and a Kahoot about disability rights. In the future, the group aims to hold monthly meetings throughout the year to promote greater awareness and understanding towards disabilities, and particularly towards Andover students with disabilities.
The Climate Cafe welcomed its first in-person speaker since February 2020: Ms. Kesiah Bascom, the founder of Offbeet Compost, a community-based food scrap collection and composting program based in Massachusetts. Last Friday, Ms. Bascom shared her experience regarding the ins and outs of business ownership as a black woman and discussed a variety of issues surrounding food justice in local communities. Climate Cafe is a speaker series that brings climate experts to campus to comment on a variety of sustainability and climate justice issues. Cafes are run through the OWHL and Office of Sustainability with student support from the PA Sustainability Coalition. The next Climate Cafe will be on October 22, and the speaker will be Ellen Townsen, the local food justice and community farming advocate.
On Friday night, Student Activities offered the Fire and Ice (Cream) event at the Pine Knoll circle for students. There were ice-cream trucks available to students and exciting performances by Photon and Boston Circus. They performed fire tricks with upbeat music, lighting up the night on campus.
The Andover Writer’s Alliance, a group of students whose mission is to promote creative writing beyond the classroom, hosted the first Creative Writing Café of the year last Saturday. The event was hosted at the Addison Gallery of American Art from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. Over twenty students gathered together to write stories and share them with one another. The goal of the event was to inspire young writers and help them discover what they want to achieve through their writing. Another Creative Writing Cafe will be hosted once or twice a month, and the year will end with a day-long writing symposium that includes speakers, writing workshops, and performances.
The Southeast Asian Club hosted a Kung Fu Tea fundraiser event on Saturday, October 16 at 5:00 p.m., in the lobby of Paresky Commons. Also known as “SEA,” the club meets on Saturdays and focuses on the celebration of Southeast Asian culture and identity.
At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 16, Asian Woman Empowerment (AWE) hosted a student-faculty mixer in the Underwood Room. AWE is an affinity group for Asian, Asian American, and mixed heritage Asian women and women-aligned students, faculty, and staff. Many Asian students gathered at the event to play games and socialize with one another over Asian snacks.
Looking Ahead:
Family Weekend will be held starting today until Sunday, October 24. The annual tradition allows family members to visit students and observe campus life. A variety of events will be hosted throughout the weekend, including performances from Andover’s bands and orchestras on the 22nd, as well as a choral concert to be held on the 23rd. Family members will also have a chance to attend each of their students’ classes and meet with their teachers.
Grasshopper, Andover’s annual student performance showcase, will be performed during Family Weekend at four different showings on October 22 and 23. This year’s theme is extravagance. Auditions were held earlier this month and about ten acts were selected for the show. They display a wide variety of talents, including dance, song, and other musical and theatrical acts. Ticket reservations were made available on Monday evening.
