Bringing a Close of National Woman's Month, 2023, with 76 3rd Graders, 29 Undergraduates Exploring Education, and Tremendous Pride for Community Engagement.

The Kendall College and Career Academy of Norwalk Public Schools has been in partnership with the School of Education and Human Development's Exploration in Education course. In addition to Pequot Library, visits to ESL classrooms at Central High School in Bridgeport, and the stellar K-8 school in Norwalk, we also answered a request for a 3rd grade field trip to visit a college campus. These young people have been reading, writing, adding, subtracting, and thinking about the ways hard work in school leads to next steps in their lives. 

At the last minute, too, the Fairfield University Art Museum created magnificent posters of an exhibit they have in the Walsh Gallery at the Quick Center. Due to some of the content and the long distance to walk there in a short amount of time, educator Kate Wellen agreed to host one of the stations for the special trip between the young people and our undergraduate students. The exhibit features,

Women's Rights Are Human Rights is a very fitting title for an exhibition of women’s rights and advocacy posters, as it is a term used in the women's rights movement and was the title of an important speech given by Hillary Rodham Clinton at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. In her address, Hillary Clinton suggested that if the term women's rights were to be interchangeable with the term human rights, the world community would be a better place because human rights affect the women who raise the world's children, care for the elderly, run companies, work in hospitals, fight for better education and better health care. 

This exhibition features posters created by both men and women from around the world to celebrate and acknowledge the vital role that all citizens should play in protecting and promoting human rights.

There's much to occur from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Dogwood, today, but it's all planned and ready to go. I'm excited to use Why Not You by Ciara and Russell Johnson (the first time I'm highlighting this book with a large audience) and I love the illustrations by Jessica Gibson. The book is perfect to launch conversations about career possibilities, dreams, and visions for the future - which is the total purpose of the Writing Our Lives event. It's all about the young scholars today.

I can't wait to process how this day goes. It's a great day when our campus opens its doors to the youngest learners and minds. And the best news is the 1 to 3 ratio of adults to kids!