“Social Justice” is a term that is thrown around a lot at USF. In classes and club meetings and even in the cafeteria, social justice is discussed and sought out. Now, Alia Al-Sharif, Vice President of Social Justice for ASUSF Senate, is asking what social justice means to you.
Al-Sharif and the senate’s Social Justice Committee, consisting of Kara Scanlon, Gizelle (Pel Gim) Chua, Sarah Reinheimer, and Maggie Kennedy, is taking a series of methods to measure the state of social justice on campus.
The first and most noticeable method are the “wish trees.” These trees, located in Harney Plaza, were transformed into wish trees when students were encouraged to write on slips of paper what they wished they could change about USF, San Francisco and the world, and hang them from the trees’ branches.
Students were also encouraged to write similar comments on large posters in Crossroads Cafe.
To retrieve even more information, the committee is distributing surveys to as many students as possible to gain a sense of what issues are being addressed adequately and what are not. The surveys will also measure how involved students are with various projects.
“We know USF does a good job with Not for Sale and lots of other groups’ events,” Al-Sharif said. “But we want to hear more voices that aren’t heard and encourage more participation.”
The results of the surveys will be tabulated and presented to the rest of senate by the end of the fall semester.
At the end of spring semester, the Social Justice Committee hopes to repeat the entire process to see how the state of social justice has evolved over the year.
test