Written By Shelby Taylor
The Bob Graham Center expanded the reach of The Wall over the summer by placing four mobile kiosks in select campus locations.
Generously funded by the Knight Foundation and other supporters, kiosks have been placed in Library West, the College of Journalism and Communications, Academic Advising and the Levin College of Law.
“It should be a great addition to Library West,” said Patrick Reakes,university librarian and chair of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library.
“We have one of the highest volumes of student traffic of any building on campus so I think it will be interesting to see how much interest we get.” A variety of creative strategies are being used to promote student participation at each location and the selected units are collaborating with the Bob Graham Center to design questions aimed at addressing issues of importance to their respective unit.
“Hopefully the students who are heavy library users will be inclined to actively engage in debating the issues presented via the wall/kiosk. One of the important features of a university campus environment is the opportunity to engage in civil discussion about a range of topics and the kiosk provides an additional venue for that,” Reakes added.
The Wall intends to introduce students from all academic disciplines to the critical issues facing our state and nation. By working with diverse units across campus, the Center hopes to prompt students from many disciplines to articulate their views on the issues and consider how their interests, backgrounds and formal studies can contribute to the formation of public policy.
To learn more or to join the debate, visit the Civil Debate Wall website or contact Shelby Taylor.