By Katlin Sweeney

Editor-in-Chief

Students will often see their peers wearing bright green t-shirts marked with the name “Civility” on the first Tuesday of every month.

 The program, known as the Civility Campaign, seeks to bring together the values of care, respect and empathy while acknowledging culture and humanity on campus. The first two years of the program were designed to spread the awareness of Civility’s core beliefs. They also developed an event called Civility Champions, where peers nominated students, faculty and staff that represent the values of the program on campus.

 In its third year, the Civility Campaign has shifted its focus to partnering up with orgs. on campus that are doing this and much more.

 “We want to focus our programmatic emphasis on anti-bullying, bystander intervention and intergroup dialogue,” program coordinator, Greg Toya, said. “We envision looking at more opportunities to have activities that will spark conversations around diversity dialogue.”

 “We need to bring awareness to our campus and expose students to what they’re not used to,” Cross-Cultural Center peer educator and Civility Campaign member, Arely Ramos, said.

 The Civility Unity event in October brought together all dimensions of the campaign’s values by creating activities for students. For the concept of respect, the LGBTQA Pride Center created activities centered around experiences with bullying. For empathy, Student Health and Counseling Services focused on domestic violence and alcohol awareness. For culture, Kellogg Library had participants contribute to a mural. For humanity, Civility created “couch conversations,” where people talked about their hopes and dreams.

 Also in October, Civility partnered up with the Majors and Minors Fair to promote the campaign to new students. In honor of Veterans Day in November, Civility had community members write thank you notes to students at the Veterans Center. In December, Civility partnered up with Hillel to play dreidel games. Participants learned different facts about Judaism, Jewish people and history. In February, Civility partnered up with BSU for Black History Month and did a “couch conversation” about discrimination. On March 4, they partnered up with USUAB, the Gender Equity Center, SLL, and the Pride Center to do a Herstory Month event.

 Students that are interested in joining the campaign or want to nominate people that represent the core values of Civility can find more information at https://www.csusm.edu/civility/.