In an effort to increase the sense of community among university members, the Democracy Fellows sponsored its first campus-wide forum Oct. 8. The event, held in Benson University Center, lasted for more than two hours and involved over 100 faculty, staff, alumni, community members and students.

"We're gratified by the numbers and the diversity of the participants," Jill McMillan, a professor of communication and Democracy Fellows co-chair, said. "Except for some glitches in logistics here and there, we feel that it went beautifully."

Participants in the deliberations enjoyed a brief introduction to the Democracy Fellows and an overview of the evening's topic of building community; however, the majority of their time was spent in smaller, student-moderated groups discussing given hypotheses for encouraging unity among members of the campus community.

"There was a lot of diversity within each group," sophomore Jonathan McCracken, one of the Fellows, said. "A lot of new ideas were presented by people who weren't represented in the past É It seemed that students were glad to be able to finally voice their opinions with people listening, such as faculty and administration, who can enact change."

Katy Harriger, co-chair of the Democracy Fellows and a professor of political science, explained that, according to research performed by the Democracy Fellows over the past two semesters, there are three main approaches to the task of building community that were examined through group discussions during the deliberations.

The first view is that there is too much separation between groups on campus such as Greeks and independents, athletes and non-athletes, and members of the different academic classes. Harriger suggested that possible solutions to this dilemma are holding events that increase school spirit and build social relationships and the inception and perpetuation of more university traditions.

The second approach discussed during the deliberations argues that the campus is too isolated. Proponents of this idea, according to Harriger, believe that the way to build community is to make the campus less self-involved and more active in the surrounding area.

"The choices kind of tug at each other," Harriger said. "They're based around how people define the problem."

The final method of framing the issue of building community presented revolved around academics. Harriger said this approach contends that the university has no sense of intellectual community.

The answer, she said, is to build a notion that work and play are mutually exclusive categories and to discourage a "work hard, play hard," mentality among students.

Both co-chairs say that it is difficult to know what the general consensus was among the groups without an in-depth analysis of the data recorded from each meeting. However, a quick glance, Harriger said, revealed that many students felt the need to build relationships across traditional student group boundaries. Harriger said there also seems to be a good deal of interest in increasing the amount of student service activities and creating more opportunities for residential learning.

"I'd say the points that people had really encompassed all three choices," Harriger said. "Often people realize that what they really want is a little of each."

Once the Democracy Fellows have completed their own review of the ideas and suggestions gathered during their forum, a formal report of the event's conclusions will be drafted and released to those who participated.

"It made students think of things they normally wouldn't have and sparked some interest in the university community," Niki Lim who served as a recorder for one of the groups, said. "That's the point of deliberation. Two heads are better than one."