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New student organizations join the University this fall

These four groups are aiming to bring more inclusive spaces to student life on the University of Minnesota campus.
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Image by Mary Ellen Ritter

The University of Minnesota has over 1,000 student groups, with more being formed annually. To comply with Student Unions & Activities guidelines, new student organizations are joining the ranks during the COVID-19 pandemic in a largely virtual space.

The Minnesota Daily spoke to four new student organizations created this fall.

VERA

After noticing the lack of Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American (APIDA) female representation in the Multicultural Greek Council, Aileen Pham, president of VERA, decided to form a sorority interest group to create an inclusive space for women.

“We wanted to cultivate an inclusive space for womxn within Greek life, and we didn’t really find ourselves fitting in within other Multicultural Greek sororities,” said Yayoua Yang, internal vice president of VERA.

The six main pillars of the group include empowerment, unity, resilience, honesty, growth and identity, and VERA aims to empower women and women’s health, increase its network and generate important conversation within the APIDA community.

“One thing all the board members of VERA had in common was the idea of expanding the Multicultural Greek Council network and having other options available to womxn of color,” said Trinity Vang, public relations director of VERA.

The letter “x” in “womxn” is often used to be inclusive of transgender, nonbinary and other marginalized women.

VERA-fied, the group’s upcoming podcast that will be released at the end of October, will feature discussions with other student leaders about sexual health, mental health and engaging with other organizations.

Student Basic Needs Coalition

After observing the systemic issues within the education system, Alexandra Zykova recently founded the University chapter of the Student Basic Needs Coalition (SBNC).

“Our main goals are to ensure that students on campus have access to basic needs and they don’t have to stress about those issues outside of an academic environment of just succeeding in their courses as well as combating the continuing rising costs of college,” Zykova said.

SBNC’s vision for the current school year includes targeting food insecurity, housing insecurity and healthcare initiatives for students on campus.

“Especially with Swipe Out Hunger not being a service that students can use this fall semester, we realized that students do not have access to ready-made meals at the dining halls due to COVID-19 precautions. … our coalition is planning on hosting a contactless delivery service or a socially distant pop-up cafe on campus around mid-November and December,” Zykova said.

SBNC’s long-term goals include fighting for lease flexibility for on-campus housing and opening a closer farmers market to the campus community, she said.

Spectrum

Due to the lack of intersectional resources for Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American queer communities, Brandon Chen and Qabzib Hang, president and vice president of Spectrum, decided to form an advocacy organization to fill that gap.

“The goals of Spectrum include creating community [and] finding resources, allyship, and awareness through dialogue to empower the intersectionalities of APIDA and LGBTQIA+ identifying folx,” Hang said.

The group hopes to create a safe space for these specific identities and strives to increase awareness about the organization as well as host educational and social events.

“We are starting a biweekly initiative called Snacktime with Spectrum where we can gather allies and people who identify as queer APIDA and have educational discussions and social bonding events,” Chen said.

United Student Education

As a first-year student, navigating resources on campus can be difficult. Swati Rampalli, president of United Student Education, noticed the issue and formed the group to fix that gap.

“United Student Education is about hosting different computer science-based projects that are designed specifically for the purpose of reducing academic disparities and providing a supportive community for students at the U,” Rampalli said.

United Student Education is working on three main projects, including a Black Lives Matter database with resources, including podcasts, influencers, donation sites, petitions and other resources for allies and the community. The group is also working on a pen pal initiative linking University international students together and building an app to help students decide which courses to take.

“We also make sure that different types of struggles are represented through our projects, whether that is diversity, academics or mental health,” Rampalli said.

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  • Richard Turnbull
    Oct 27, 2020 at 4:13 pm

    There are the usual neuroses of civilized life to which we are all subject, of course, and must cope with as best we can, but I have no “untreated mental illness.”
    Compare this, you preposterous right wing twerp:
    Mary Trump: Psychiatrists know what’s wrong with my uncle …www.washingtonpost.com › outlook › 2020/10/22
    5 days ago — Muzzling its members is a dereliction of duty by the American Psychiatric Association. President Trump at a campaign rally in Gastonia …

    Psychiatrists submit warning Trump’s mental health deterioratingwww.businessinsider.com › Politics
    Dec 5, 2019 — A petition signed by 350 psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals claiming that President Donald Trump’s mental health is …

    “Sociopathy”: Psychiatrist says Trump’s behavior “meets …www.salon.com › 2020/10/06 › sociopathy-psychiatrist…
    October 6, 2020 6:39PM (UTC). President Donald Trump’s maskless return to the White House on Monday following a weekend at Walter Reed Medical Center …

    Yale psychiatrist: Debate should never have happened due to …www.salon.com › 2020/10/01 › yale-psychiatrist-debat…
    Oct 1, 2020 — A Yale psychiatrist who has repeatedly raised questions about President Trump’s mental health argued that Tuesday’s debate against Joe …

  • Tom
    Oct 20, 2020 at 5:56 am

    Ok dude. Good luck with your untreated mental illness.

  • Gopheralum
    Oct 16, 2020 at 10:16 am

    My god Richard is insane. My question was so simple.

    Non-binary: not identifying as a man or woman.

    Non-binary woman: woman who doesn’t identify as a woman.

    It’s either impossible or insulting.

  • Richard Turnbull
    Oct 16, 2020 at 4:40 am

    So you have 592 comments and hide them and it’s OTHER PEOPLE worth attacking for being “mentally ill,” ok.
    ROTFLMAO Time for Les McCann and Eddie Harris at montreux jazz festival:
    COMPARED TO WHAT
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UrjQSVbIkk

  • Richard Turnbull
    Oct 16, 2020 at 4:40 am

    Uh, not “bragging” about going to gradual school, went on to law school after that, as these are simply very basic facts I am not “bragging” about that, either. Which parts of my mental life do you think are “ill,” exactly?
    I do try to keep doing as much reading and physical exercise as possible (1000 squats with weights MINIMUM daily, still not eating any red meat, do eat chicken and fish etc. though) along with my keyboards (Roland Juno DS88, and great Fenders and Epiphone guitars, so SUE ME for enjoying that — is it “bragging” according to your way of thinking”?!) and guitar exercises and improvisations, but I do admit after getting to Book V of War and Peace where Pierre B. is initiated into the freemasonry after the duel and the supposed “scandal’ of his wife’s affair, I am slacking off.
    OK so you can consider it all “mentally ill” but where is the cogent, coherent defense of the attacks on the “non-binary” concept, which is the real point? Aha! You have none, neither of you trolls, c’est incroyable!

  • Richard Turnbull
    Oct 15, 2020 at 9:16 pm

    Sure, sure, that’s what I am doing, “bragging about advanced studies on a student papers (sic) website.”
    I brag constantly about my braggadoccio, it consumes me, it fuels my fiery contempt for right wing dunces whining about some person defining themselves as “non-binary.”
    And man oh man, I am crazy enough to brag about taking gender studies and all academic studies seriously, and laugh and mock incredibly fragile male egos, so sue me.
    Evidently the “general concept” of gradual school astonishes you, “Tom.”

    C’est la vie!
    Btw on Netflix “Enola Holmes” is wonderful stuff.

  • Richard Turnbull
    Oct 15, 2020 at 6:32 pm

    You need to post that “obvious” list of criteria to enlighten the rest of us, since there is evidently some sort of “contradiction” that makes a coherent use of the term “non-binary woman” a problem for your weltanschauung, just as I suspected.
    Meanwhile, compared to what is it a “contradiction”?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UrjQSVbIkk

  • Richard Turnbull
    Oct 15, 2020 at 9:16 pm

    Also: My entire commenting history is open and available, while you “clearly mentally ill” right wing extremist lunatic fringe woman-hating twerps hide yours.
    I will stand my all my comments, whether or not they are the summum bonum of mental health or not.

  • Tom
    Oct 15, 2020 at 7:12 pm

    You’re clearly mentally ill.

    Are you trying to brag about the general concept of attending grad school on a student papers website?

    Wow.

  • Richard Turnbull
    Oct 15, 2020 at 4:12 am

    Ah, good thing I majored in philosophy here at the U, and before I got to grad school (also here), I studied problems connected with the use of a logical term of art as if it requires no further disambiguation when used within another context, as you have done here.
    Here , the term you cite as if it instantiates a “contradiction” is the phrase “non-binary woman,” which is a thesis you have to defend: what is supposed to be the contradiction? Inasmuch as an individual woman is a dynamic, changing reality and not a static entity, “contradiction’ is not in itself an incoherent attribute, despite your assumptions otherwise.
    Who is being “excluded,” and who exactly is using it as such? As far as I know, using this or that sociological description does not invidiously exclude others, but is merely more or less useful as part of a theoretical model. You would have to show some kind of harm from the “exclusion,” at the very least, even after you have shown it is intentionally meant to exclude.
    I should have known you would immediately become both condescending and pretentious, and then claim it is your interlocutor who is doing so. I should have known you would immediately double down on your witless attack on the “non-binary woman” terminology, which has none of the implications you claim it has, along with adding familiarity with ” gender theory/studies” to your online c.v.

  • Gopheralum
    Oct 14, 2020 at 10:35 am

    I’m sure you see the contradiction in the phrase “non-binary woman” and the exclusiveness it leads to in its attempt to be inclusive. I’m quite familiar with gender theory/studies and I agree that there are useful insights produced by left-leaning academic fields of study. However, hypotheses treated as conclusions are not revelations.

    While your condescension and pretentiousness did not go unnoticed, I’m afraid you’ve said nothing meaningful in your dishonest attempt to explain the phrase.

  • Richard Turnbull
    Oct 14, 2020 at 5:16 am

    Evidently a mystery to you, as you would have to engage in an intellectual search for information, including especially perspectives on reality and existence new and unfamiliar to you, and assimilate it into your weltanschauung.
    That might lead to dangerous consequences, such as the stunning revelation that various fields of academic study routinely mocked by the stodgy right wing, can indeed produce useful and important insights about our species, ethics, religious dogmas and their effects, gender roles, and a host of other topics.
    So it might be simpler and more comfortable to simply refuse to acknowledge any of that is possible, based on the indisputable fact that what you already believe about all of this is, not only the the summum bonum of human attainment in this respect, but a kind of epistemic touchstone for others to behold in awe.
    Is that clear, or do you expect me to explain the explanation?

  • Gopheralum
    Oct 13, 2020 at 1:35 pm

    ‘The letter “x” in “womxn” is often used to be inclusive of transgender, nonbinary and other marginalized women.’ —

    What is a non-binary woman?