The human level

Campus life can seem isolated and individualistic. Complaints about the lack of dialogue and lack of community at Columbia are so common that people have started complaining about the complaining. Even more toxic is that this culture of complaining marginalizes any forum for discussions about solutions and compounds our stress and alienation from each other. As groups like the Student Wellness Project have recently pointed out, this has real, tangible, negative effects on our health and well-being. Conversing and coming together as a group seem to be such simple actions, but for some reason, it is difficult for us to stop isolating ourselves in Butler or internalizing feelings of stress or anxiety. Through isolating ourselves, we forego one of our most basic functions as human beings: connection. Shared experiences with other individuals, with campus organizations, or even with global organizations can help fight our disconnection and serve as an example of how to remedy it.

Partnership is the key to our shift from detachment to connection, and student groups are not foreign to this model. There are organizations dedicated to the model of human connection. GlobeMed at Columbia funds an HIV/AIDS project in Gulu, Uganda, which is implemented by our partner organization, Gulu Women’s Economic Development and Globalization. Our relationship with GWED-G extends far beyond the successful funding of a project. We make sure we know the names and the stories of the people that receive our money, just like they know our names and our stories. The cultivation of mutual respect, accountability, and admiration for each other is our organization’s greatest priority. At the very heart of this partnership is a belief in the power of human relationships to improve society through recognition of shared values. We believe that conversations and community are integral to lasting social change.

Conversations and community do not have to be intercontinental in order to create lasting social change. GlobeMed’s relationship with GWED-G is effective because it is most essentially based upon human connection. The human connection is applicable among all people, even within our competitive Columbia campus. The interdependent quality of humanity and the necessity to harness it has been recognized on our campus. In an effort to spur communication among student groups, Columbia College and Engineering Student councils planned the first-ever Student Group Leadership Summit this past January. Various student groups addressed the issue that not only do individual students feel alone, but that campus groups feel isolated. Many of the groups emerged from this summit with plans to co-sponsor events, maintaining the common goal of successful events that would bring together Columbia students.

Even before the Student Group Leadership Summit, global health and social justice groups on campus began partnering more with each other, especially with the formation of the Global Health Partnership Network on campus, which involves Student Global AIDS Campaign, the Journal of Global Health, Columbia University Dance Marathon, and several other student groups in discussions about potential collaborations and shared innovations. Groups from this network have effectively supported each other in events such as the World AIDS Week benefit and a World Day of Social Justice debate. The prospect of continued dialogue and partnership among these and other groups is how Columbia can seek to transform the isolation to unity.

Students and administrators at Columbia need to create and embrace more forums like the Student Group Leadership Summit and the Global Health Partnership Network for active communication and exchange. We need to think about a model of solidarity through empathy on a global scale and apply it to our lives here. We need to have solidarity through empathy on an individual basis with fellow students, and on a group basis with fellow student organizations. Clearly, this is something all student groups have been thinking about, and the goal of community is not impossible. We need to realize our abilities as agents of social change and move from complaining to discussion, from isolation to community, and from inertia to action.

Lexa Koenig is a Columbia College sophomore majoring in MEASAS with a concentration in sustainable development. Lillian Jin is a Columbia College junior majoring in English and biology. They are both the co-presidents of GlobeMed.