On Thursday, September 10, the Sage Center held its first Sage Centered Conversation on the topic Black Lives Matter through Zoom. 

Sage Centered Conversations aims for students and faculty to discuss and learn more about a specific topic or theme that affects the community. It opens up to students for submitting topic ideas. Students and faculty can seek to speak from their perspectives, understand others’ stances, and, most of all, come together as a community. 

“One of the reasons we bring the community together to have conversations that have a lot of emotion, passion, and personal connection is because it helps us grow,” said Sage Center Director Christopher Dennis.

In the first conversation, 20 students and faculty shared their thoughts and reactions to the recent events regarding the Black Lives Matter movement. They emphasized their support of the movement and discussed its impact on themselves. 

Although many in attendance were saddened by the social injustice still highly present in the United States, they still felt empowered knowing there were people standing up against it. The conversation lasted about an hour. 

“Racism has been a problem in America for a long time. The portrayal of the movement, the looting and violence, is not the ideal situation,” said freshman Antonia Park. “But I sympathise with the original intent of the movement and the peaceful protests.”

The next Sage Centered Conversation will take place on October 8. You can submit your topic ideas here.