David Eide – Opinion Columnist
This Saturday will see the 27th annual student led Building Bridges Conference; Knowledge is Power: Dismantling Systematic Bias in Educational Institutions. The Building Bridges conference is one of the most significant events held during the Gustavus academic year; not only is it an educational event that examines many of the important and topical issues facing us, but it is also entirely student run.
I cannot claim to be a totally neutral source as I am a member of the Building Bridges planning committee and I also sit on the executive board which may lead to a bit of bias on my part. However, I think that I can still make a very effective case for the importance of Building Bridges as an institution and why specifically you should try to attend this Saturday.
My appreciation for Building Bridges actually goes back before I was even a student at Gustavus. In fact, Building Bridges was one of the main motivators for me deciding to attend Gustavus in the first place. Back when I was a high school senior, Gustavus invited me and several other seniors to come and stay at the school over Building Bridges weekend to get a good picture of what campus life actually looked like.
The theme for that year was immigration justice and it had a very profound effect on me. I can vividly recall many of the speakers and several of the educational pieces that I attended throughout the day. There was one educational piece that attempted to provide a simulation of the conditions faced by immigrants on the southern border in detention camps. I remember that event to this day due to how upsetting it was. The effort and passion that I saw from the Gustavus community that day was one of the driving factors that led to me choosing to attend which should be enough to demonstrate how life-changing Building Bridges can actually be.
One of the most notable aspects of Building Bridges is that it is entirely student run; students plan the conference, students invite the various speakers, and students put on the conference when the fateful finally arrives. In a sense, Building Bridges fulfills the same role in the second semester that the Nobel Conference fills during first semester. Unlike the Nobel Conference, Building Bridges is planned and executed by students and perhaps as a result, often reflects upon topical events. Consequently, Building Bridges allows students to explore topics that they are personally interested in, helping them develop their own perspective which should be the goal of any liberal arts institution.
Furthermore, actually planning Building Bridges provides a great deal of useful experience for when students leave college and enter the work world, from learning how to cooperate with others to figuring out the logistics of hosting a massive conference amidst a global pandemic. The people who put on Building Bridges are not paid for their work, they do it out of a sense of duty and a desire to bring an excellent educational experience to campus. Building Bridges embodies the best of the Gustavus student body, showing their commitment to public service which are the traits that Gustavus seeks to encourage.
This years Building Bridges conference covers an especially important topic, namely the presence of inequality and discrimination within the various aspects of the educational system, from schools to museums. This is becoming increasingly relevant as our schools come under increasing pressure from politicians for purely electoral reasons and educational inequities are being exposed at a quicker and quicker pace.
From the revelation of the horrible mass grave sites in the Canadian residential schools to the rising debate surrounding how museums present their artifacts and whether some should be returned to their indigenous cultures. The speakers arrayed for Building Bridges highlight key aspects of the numerous injustices present within the educational system. For example, there is Dr. Michelle Tovar, the Director of Public Engagement at Holocaust Museum Houston, one of the most well-regarded museums regarding the Holocaust in the United States.
There is also Dr. Christian Uwe, an Assistant Professor of cultural studies and comparative literature at the U of M who has written a good deal about the politics of publishing and knowledge exchange. There can be no doubt that these keynote speakers will highlight critical points of injustice that exist within our educational system, whether those be in schools, museums, or any other educational institution.
Building Bridges is a crucial piece in the mosaic of our campus community, giving students the chance to shine a light on issues that matter to them and that may otherwise be ignored. It serves to enrich our minds, widen our perspectives, and yes, build bridges between ideas that may seem unconnected at first but actually have a deep through line. It is for reasons why I think that Building Bridges is definitely worth your time, it changed my life and who knows, it might just change yours.