CTA Day Blog

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the event we had at school for Call to Action Day. The reason was because I had to attend a department dinner for my major, and I spent the morning doing work for a class that was not canceled that day, but I was going to miss because of the dinner. I was one of the students in the organizing committee that was in charge of putting together the dinner. I will be writing my blog based on what we did that lead up to it, and the dinner itself; which I see reflect the hallmarks of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

One obvious hallmark that we reflected in the committee was Hallmark number four: committing ourselves to community service. For over the last four weeks, my fellow students and faculty that were in the committee met every Tuesday at noon. We discussed everything from what to serve for dinner, what theme we should have, designing the flyers, assigned tasks to members and the list goes on. The event took a lot of effort to take shape. Other students, as well as community members were invited to the event. Additionally, it took a lot of service to put the location in order. We scrambled to get the plates out, the tables decorated, food out on the tables, silverware put out, drinks chilled and even placed flowers on each table. Without the help of those who were there, it would have been a disaster.

The second hallmark that could be seen from the event is hallmark number three: educating for and on behalf of justice and peace in the world. More and more, we see our country divided. With extremist candidates on the rise, racially divided rhetoric is becoming more and more popular. With this in mind, it is important to listen to speakers such as the one we had, Dr. Abbas Milani, and open ourselves to academic explanations. He gave a very optimistic speech about how our school, despite these dark times, can still have a positive impact. These ideas are essentially, especially with the negative views that are rising everywhere.