O is for One-Hundred-Forty-Characters

For those who are unfamiliar, Twitter is a social networking tool that allows users to post messages of no more than 140 characters.  These tweets compose each user’s microblog, which is essentially a stream of status updates that may include personal information and whereabouts, news stories, trivia, or other information of interest.  Twitter is now a favorite outlet of celebrities, protesters in Moldova and Iran, authors, news reporters, and students.  It occurred to me today that my Twitter (@baileythomson) is completely dominated by W&M-related updates.

From bottom to top:

1. Alma Mater Productions (AMP), our on-campus entertainment group, hosted its first Fridays At Five three days ago.  Each week in the early Fall and late Spring, AMP brings live music to the Sadler Center Terrace.  Students finishing classes for the week enjoy beautiful weather, outdoor seating, and an up-and-coming visiting band.  This week, “Sleepwalk, A Robot” performed two awesome sets!

2. On Saturday, Students Helping Honduras hosted its biannual leadership summit at Mary Washington.  Representatives from William and Mary’s chapter attended to train on recruitment, trip leadership, fundraising, and more.  Because I could not attend, I tuned in via live broadcast from the SHH website.

3. On Friday night, I volunteered from 9pm to 2am at Campus Escort, a free ride service offered by Alpha Phi Omega Co-Ed Community Service Fraternity.  Students can find our phone number on the back of their student ID cards and are encouraged to call Escort to avoid walking home alone in the evenings.  We pick students up for free and shuttle them to their dorms in golf carts!

4. I spent Saturday and Sunday in Petersburg (about an hour away) with fifteen freshmen in the Sharpe Community Scholars program.  I am a Sharpe Fellow, or teaching assistant, for the Paths to Civic Engagement seminar, which investigates the integration of academia and community service.  As an introduction to civic engagement theory, the students spent Saturday and Sunday in Petersburg doing direct service with Habitat for Humanity and spending time with community members and historians.  Professor Stelljes, the seminar’s leader, will debrief the weekend with the class on Tuesday, beginning to explain how relationships with community members and long-term investment in that community are necessary for sustainable impact therein.

5. On Saturday night, W&M beat UVA in football for the first time in 23 years!  Next week’s home opener promises to be an exciting game.

6. Alma Mater Productions will air its newest media, a TV show called “Crossroads” in October.  It will be an awesome mix of campus news, humor, and interesting issues that airs on YouTube and WMTV.

And, of course, my Twitter background is tiled W&M cyphers.  Just can’t hide that W&M pride!

Go Tribe,

Bailey