Build Day

Merriam-Webster defines the intransitive verb to build as:
1. To engage in building (the art or business of assembling materials into a structure)
2a. To progress toward a peak
2b. To develop in extent

May 3, 2013 was the first ever Olin Build Day, and the idea was to build both the Olin campus and the Olin community. Build Day was student led, but everyone on campus participated -- students, faculty, staff, and even some local alumni. We cleaned the stockrooms, built a phone/Skype area in the dorms, wrote postcards to hundreds of alumni, talked about how to improve course evaluations, painted and hung the paintings all around the campus, baked a lot of yummy food, and much more. It definitely felt like a day of embracing Do Something.

Chalk drawings + Do Something

Baking in East Hall

Olin's favorite books! Also, Olin runs on sticky notes.

I spent the morning in the East Hall kitchen with one of the baking groups. There were a total of six baking groups (three 2 hour time slots and two kitchens). Our team was made up of four students, one professor (Caitrin, my anthro professor from the fall), and one staff member (Tracy, who manages the senior capstone program, SCOPE). It was lots of fun. We made dozens and dozens of cookies, some chocolate chip and some cocoa with powdered sugar on top. We ate a few, and then the rest were served at closing ceremonies. While we baked, we talked about what we're all doing this summer, the research Caitrin is about to start, and Girl Scouts. I think the fact that we talked a lot was the most rewarding part of those two hours in the kitchen. While I knew the other three students, I only get to talk to one of them much, and it had been a while since I had talked to Caitrin. I had never met Tracy before, and I doubt I would have interacted with her at all until senior year.

I spent the afternoon going from activity to activity. I did some chalk drawings (one of a roller coaster and another of one of my favorite graphs), went to a Candid Conversations with Faculty and Staff, wrote a postcard to an alum from the class of 2009, and added some books to the list the library was making of the community's favorite books.

My favorite parts of Build Day were definitely interacting with new people. Olin sounds small -- under 350 total students and then faculty and staff-- but there's no way to interact with that many people on a regular basis, and there are a lot of people (staff especially) whom I never see. The students in general feel very close to the faculty, but there's more of a gap with the staff, and so seeing that gap become smaller was really cool.