Christian Kowalski

Context:

I was accepted into the Periclean Scholars program my freshman year at Elon. My reason for joining the program was based on an increased interest in global issues I acquired after completing my International Relations class.

 

It’s difficult to pinpoint specific titles in the program because of work has continued to adapt and evolve over the course of the program. For a time, I was a member of the grants committee which was responsible for researching grants, compiling outlines and in some cases, writing the professional documents that we would distribute. During my fall Junior semester, I was in the Lead committee which would set the agenda for every week’s class and structure how the class operated inside and outside the class. I’ve also participated in steering committee, which is a bi-weekly session where student representatives from each Periclean class meet with the staff to send updates and discuss program wide issues. My current role, and the one where the most important work I’ve done for Periclean has been based in, is the conference committee. Through the conference committee, which is leading the efforts in establishing a student-led sustainable agriculture conference, I’ve collaborated on a variety of documents from memorandums, concept notes, sponsorship letters, etc.

 

The main selling point for Periclean is that the ideas and programs generated by each class are student led and driven. Advisors guide us and offer counsel throughout the processes, but the successes and failures we’ve encountered are what have let us grow in stronger advocates and collaborators.

 

Rhetorical Decisions:

When writing professional documents like the Memorandum of Understanding or concept note, the most important initial points we needed to consider was our own privilege. This requires us to look beyond our own perspective and approach our role and writing through the lens of others. Part of the attempt to consider perspective is rooted in not using the conference to teach Namibian students and farmers about sustainable agriculture. My PWR identity, sadly, does not include an expert level of understanding in hydroponic or BioIntensive agricultural methods.

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This is important to understand because as students from a Western country, going over to Namibia to teach them about sustainable agriculture, where none of us are equipped to do so, is problematic. To do so would violate social, racial and ethical bounds within the sphere of service. That’s what it is important, before every professional document we release, to check it for a balanced perspective. We are simply, in an established partnership with the University of Namibia, providing a foundation for students, activists and farmers to share their research and experiences in a wide, accessible forum. Thinking about our perspective has to be at the forefront, even before the prewriting and revising begins.

 

In my experience with Periclean, one of the challenging things we’ve had to deal with is effective communication. Both internally and externally, trying to coordinate a conference with a university thousands of miles away in a different time zone along with collaborating with fellow Pericleans who have their own personal visions for how things should be laid out, presents a challenge. From a peer-to-peer basis, collaboration is a key feature in ensuring we produce a document that is efficiently made and well done. Many times, there will be 2-3 students working on this Periclean assignments before we send them out to be emailed. The main lesson from this was separating my personal voice from the organizational voice. Even though I’m one of a few writing these documents, I’m representing an entire class of students, an organization and in many cases, Elon University. As Pericleans, we are acting as representatives for Elon so we must conduct ourselves professionally and ethically when producing this content. Our organization has a core mission and principles that I must consider beyond my perspective. The students I’m working with come attached with their own experiences and perspective that are valuable to the work accomplished in the committee. This all reveals that the work I do goes beyond myself and affects those all around me.

 

Reflection:

One of the challenges that comes with writing as a Periclean is that the writing goes beyond oneself in many different ways. Our aim as an organization is to create sustainable change in some form or capacity by the time our four years at Elon is over. Whenever I get distressed at the pitfalls of bureaucracy or regressive cultural standards that are held by some Namibians on age and gender, I realize that this work has larger implications. Rhetoric is being used as a tool to establish international partnerships, sponsor speakers and engage students all in the hopes of the strengthening the community. I’m not equipped to tackle the issue of food insecurity from a scientific, environmental or political perspective. There are many ways you can frame the issue and most of them I would not be qualified for, but that’s part of my learning process as I aim to continue working toward public service and community development.

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Below you'll find the documents embedded.