Members Present: Khurshad Anwar, Rani Carson, Norman Daniels, Joy Mahabir, Denise Sariego
We planned our next event, the screening of the film "The Lost Honor of Katrina Blum" which will now take place in Captree Commons Room 114. (The Van Nostrand Theatre in the Sagtikos building was already booked.) The film will be shown on April 26th at 3:30 p.m., followed by a discussion afterwards. All necessary equipment was ordered, and the paperwork was completed. Rani will request that a flyer be created, both in black and white, and color, if possible, and Norman will request permission to notify the student body via e-mail. Denise Sariego said she would forward copy about the film to Rani for the flyer.
There was some discussion also about the distribution of flyers on campus, which led to a further discussion about freedom of speech issues that might need to be addressed on campus. Since the title of the committee includes the phrase "open communication", it might fall to us to consider in what ways we could help our campus better exemplify freedom of speech.
We have scheduled our last event of the spring semester, which will be a screening of Al Gore's " An Inconvenient Truth" to take place, hopefully in the Van Nostrand Theatre (if it is not already booked for that date), on Thursday, May 3rd, at 3:30 p.m. We decided to hold this screening just a week after the other one, as by the sec ond week in May, students are preoccupied with finals, and less likely to attend an extra-curricula event.
Our last meeting of FOCUS for the semester will be held on Wednesday, May 9th, at 11 a.m. Please save the date. We can review what we've accomplished this semester, and envision what we hope to "focus" on next.
Next semester, Joy mentioned that the students at Stonybrook are putting on a dramatization and discussion called "Swallow this" which deals with substance abuse. The Office of Multicultural Affairs will be bringing the event to the campus in November, and Joy asked if FOCUS would like to co-sponsor it. The committee was inclined to favor this proposal. It could be discussed further at our May 9th meeting.
Of course, members of other campuses are always welcome to attend our meetings and events. And please keep us informed of your plans, meetings and events too.
Respectfully submitted,
Rani Carson
Professor of
Art