Meet & Greet Series: Bringing SPH Together.
Meet & Greet Series: Bringing the SPH Community Together
The Activist Lab at BUSPH has undergone a lot of change in the last year and a half. Coming out of that change is a stream of exciting new events and opportunities for students and the SPH community to connect and expand their public health practice. One of these emerging events is the Activist Meet & Greet Series. The central aim of the Meet & Greet Series is to bring together students, staff, and all members of the BUSPH community with local organizations and advocates informing the practice of public health.
The first event of this series occurred in fall 2021 and focused on the LGBTQ+ health space. Following a year of largely online events, the opportunity to host everyone in person was incredibly exciting. The Activist Lab partnered with the BUSPH Queer Alliance and together were able to host six community partners working in Massachusetts to support LGBTQ+ people of all ages on campus to engage with interested students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The Fenway Institute: LGBTQIA+ Aging Project, Transgender Emergency Fund of Massachusetts, BAGLY, BHCHP Transgender Program, Victory Programs Mobile Prevention Team, and Harvard SOGIE Group.
Caroline McQuade, the Operations Associate for the Activist Lab, was central to navigating the moving parts in planning this event and explains the impact it had, “I think this event was important because it brought together groups from many different spaces that are all working towards a common mission, and was able to connect our students with this mission. A lot of students come to BUSPH for these important connections, so creating a space where that can happen is so important”.
The population of students at BUSPH this semester is unique as many of those in their second year have not been able to make connections on campus, or even in-person in the Boston area until now. This first Meet & Greet Series event was able to tap into that need and create a space for students in search of internships, jobs, volunteer work, and other opportunities and connections. Sara Mar, a Queer Alliance officer, MPH candidate, and writing fellow at Public Health Post shared, “The LGBTQIA+ Meet and Greet event was a great forum for students to sit down and talk 1:1 with local LGBTQIA+ organizations about the amazing public health work being done in the community and how they can get involved. It was a valuable opportunity for students to get connected to people doing public health advocacy on the ground.”
Engaging with peers, staff, community organizations, and all members of our community is an essential aspect to each of us creating our own public health practice. The Activist Lab is creating more ways to help make that a possibility for the BUSPH community as a whole. “My favorite part was the way the event panned out,” said McQuade. “This was our first time trying this kind of less formal networking activity, so we weren’t sure how the structure was going to play out. But students sat down at organizations’ tables, met organizations representatives and new student peers, and had these super deep and meaningful conversations. It was so cool to watch.”
The Activist Lab is developing more events in this series. The next opportunity will occur in spring 2022 in partnership with Students of Color for Public Health. Keep an eye out for upcoming events on the Activist Lab’s website and social media.
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