by Kat Atherton, staff writer

Faculty, staff, and students have an opportunity to embrace their global community at Global Village. The student-led and community-oriented event has a new weekly time. Meetups will now be held at the Rampart Range Atrium on Tuesdays at 11:30 am and the Centennial Campus Grove Wednesdays at 12:30 pm.

Global Village encourages students of a wide variety of ages, nationalities, gender-identities, academic interests, physical abilities and challenges, and levels of education to form new connections and discuss difficult and nuanced topics in a healthy and guided environment. Each week is centered around particular topics to empower students to participate effectively in a society that encompasses diverse experiences, perspectives and realities.

Topics include societal violence, generational trauma, proactive self-care, and many more. Professor Martin Conrad, chair of the humanities department, expresses his fondness for the event, “Global Village truly is a ‘village’ of openness and support. Conflicting viewpoints have been expressed, and in my experience, they have always been treated with respect and civilized discourse. Students have openly shared very deep, personal experiences and been enthusiastically supported by other ‘Villagers’,” he says.

“It has been remarked more than once that GV sometimes serves as a sort of group-therapy for attendees, and we’ve half-jokingly referred to ourselves as Academics Anonymous,” Conrad says.

Students are also encouraged to attend the informal open table conversations hosted by Professor Conrad every Thursday at 12:30pm in the Centennial Campus Grove.