Dwight Hall workshop stresses communication

By Anika Singh

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH Maureen McKenna, GRD '98, tutors children each week at Welch Elementary School.

Last Friday's workshop was organized by the Dwight Hall Leadership Institute, which sponsors a series of speakers and workshops open to all students.

Speer heads Elm City Congregations Organized (ECCO), which was started almost five years ago as a leadership training program for both religious and secular community leaders. ECCO includes 21 congregations of various faiths and ethnic backgrounds, and focuses on issues relating to "poverty and injustice in our religion." It has recently acted through local government initiatives to help create a living wage bill, shut down liquor stores within 500 hundred feet of schools, and to regulate local gun sales.

Speer related his ECCO experiences to community organizing in general. At the start of the meeting, student activists expressed the need to learn how to reach out to members of the Yale community. He emphasized the importance of face-to-face communication. Progress, Speer explained, is impossible in the absence of one-on-one organizing. Only on a firm basis of manners, respect, trust, and accountability is a successful public life possible.

Some eyebrows were raised by Speer's insistence that such virtues as sincerity and loyalty are inappropriate to a public life. According to Speer, self-interest and power are the driving forces behind one's public life. He noted, "Power is not a bad thing and self-interest is not selfishness; it's acknowledging your limits." Speer also redefined such terms as "tension" and "problem," framing them in a positive light as a starting point for change.

The program also included a workshop component in which students participated in role-playing. The interaction between students was then evaluated by Speer and the other attendees.

Tassie McKay, TD '00, Tenure Action Coalition co-coordinator commented, "This is what I came to this workshop for." Julie Weise, SY '00, who has worked with Speer as a Dwight Hall Urban Fellow, also remarked that she has found Speer's suggestions to be effective. "Over the last few months, his one-on-one approach has changed the way I think about working with people," she explained.

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