SHU’s Uniting Hearts Initiative Launches New Cultural Immersion Campaign

SHU community offers events, lectures to increase cultural awareness

Sacred Heart University’s Uniting Hearts Initiative and the SHU Multicultural Center are partnering once again to launch a campus-wide campaign promoting diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), which will increase cultural awareness on SHU’s campus and in the local community.

The DEIB campaign is spearheaded by students in Mark Congdon Jr.’s public relations, activism and social change course. The newly established Multicultural Center student advisory board and SHU’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter are also partners in the campaign. “Uniting Hearts through Cultural Immersion,” occurring April 6-27, fosters dialogue about how to embrace all aspects of diversity, learn how to have difficult conversations around issues of difference and encourage putting those ideas into action.

Multiple educational opportunities and interactive on-campus events will take place throughout the month to encourage campus engagement around the topics of microaggressions, allyship, and how to engage in dialogue around uncomfortable conversations related to DEIB, among other topics.

The goal of this campaign is to bring the Bridgeport and SHU communities together; celebrate all aspects of diversity and difference; examine systemic classism, racism and sexism embedded in society that contribute to cultural divisions; and acknowledge the need for individual and collective change on campus, in the local community and in society.

 “This collaborative campaign will allow us to continue the important work of previous Uniting Hearts initiatives with increasing cultural awareness and acceptance in our community, while also advancing SHU’s social justice mission,” said Congdon, assistant professor of communication studies.

Five different events and lunch discussions held by the Multicultural Center, multicultural student advisory board, SHU PRSSA chapter, SHU students and community professionals will take place throughout April:

• April 19 at 8 p.m.: “Microaggressions on Campus” virtual talk with guest speaker Dar Mayweather
• April 21 at 12:30 p.m.: “Lunch and Listen #1: Dialoguing Uncomfortable Conversations” at McMahon Commons on SHU’s campus with free lunch provided
• April 23 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.: End-of-year diversity celebration at the Seton/Merton courtyard with free food provided
• April 25 at 12:30 p.m.: “Lunch and Listen #2: Examining Higher Education’s Commitment to Inclusion & Belonging” at the Naclerio Commons patio with free lunch provided
• April 27 at 8 p.m.: DEIB trivia night at Red’s Pub with chances to win prizes

There will also be “Wisdom Wednesday” community conversations held by SHU’s Multicultural Center on April 6, 13, 20 and 27 at 1 p.m. All discussions are in person at the Multicultural Center in the Main Academic Building, room HC111.

The campaign’s biggest event is a community-wide, end-of-year diversity celebration on April 23, where SHU student clubs, local businesses and nonprofits, such as SHU’s diversity, inclusion & multicultural clubs, SHU’s PRSSA chapter, Lunalin Candles, Japan Society of Fairfield County and Bridgeport Public Education Fund, among others, will participate. The Multicultural Center’s diversity celebration is free and open to the community, and it will feature food from multiple cultures, educational information and activities celebrating cultural differences and communities, music and local organizations and businesses promoting and selling their merchandise and services.

“What I’m most excited about for our end-of-year diversity celebration is sharing our successes within multicultural affairs with the rest of the SHU community,” said Leela Gallucci, multicultural affairs graduate assistant and master’s program candidate. “I hope that students can immerse themselves in a new culture and just overall enjoy a day full of celebration. It’s important that we can all come together as a community and practice inclusivity among our peers.”

This campaign is part of the School of Communication, Media & the Arts’ community engagement initiative started by Congdon called Uniting Hearts, geared towards service-learning courses in the undergraduate strategic communication, public relations and advertising (SCPRA) major. Past campaigns of the Uniting Hearts initiative include a public awareness campaign promoting the importance of allyship and how to be an effective ally in the spring of 2021 and raising awareness about the importance of being financially literate in the fall of 2022. 

The Uniting Hearts initiative provides students across certain SCPRA courses opportunities to collaborate with on- and off-campus community partners around different social justice issues each semester and unite in working to address the defined issue through educating, motivating, and encouraging action. The Uniting Hearts initiative centers on relational and strategic communication as vehicles for positive social and community change.

“This Uniting Hearts campaign showcases the collective power of a community engaged in advancing the mission and purpose of higher education,” said Robert Johnson, director of the Multicultural Center at SHU. 

For more information on the campaign’s upcoming events, visit the Pioneer Planner calendar or the spring 2022 Uniting Hearts Program of events website.