English Undergraduate Conference

Panel 11………………………………………………..Leonard 214
Moderator: Judy Bertonazzi
“Raising Awareness About Our Roles in Diversity: Implications for Becoming Agents of Change.”
Haley McComb, Heather Black

The presentation introduces the problem of racial discrimination and prejudice as well as negative stereotypes existing in all societies today as a result of the globalization. Because of our skin color, because of our disability or other negative features that we possess, we are assumed inferior by other people around us, even ourself, we tend to have some kind of a negative impression of those who we consider to be inferior before we even get to know the real truth.

What I learn from this presentation is the way to make a change, that is to be the change yourself. At the end, four key elements to success in rasiing awareness about our roles in diversity are introduced, and they are: awareness, analysis, action and accountablity.

Panel 15……………………………………………….Leonard 210
Moderator: Tracy Lassiter
“Transcendental Meditation and the Internet: Two Approaches to Omniscience, Their Expression In, and Effect On Literature”
Damon M. Boykiw

Somehow I found this presentation extremely abstract, and the speaker appearted to be lazy-looking and speaking in a drowsy fasion, and he hardly made any eye contact with the audience. To make the matter worse, he came unprepared, no hand out, no slide show, but a piece a written draft. I believe the presentation is about meditation adn the internet in today's world, it's about using how internet can be found anywhere around the world right now, meaning that everyboy is connected to one another, and therefore making it difficult for people to have some real peace and quiet. This leads to mediatation, I learnt that mediatation can be praticed in many different forms besides sitting quietly and closing your eyes. Actually, when we focus our attention on doing something such playing a videogame or watching a soccer match, that is also a kind of mediatation since it relieves us from those stresss and allows us to forget life problems for the time being.