Melissa Bippart
Staff Writer
Dr. Laura Jansma, professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, teaches ?Communication and Peace? for the Communication Department and her students are creating projects demonstrating how to communicate peace. Students will give attendees and passersby the opportunity to engage in peace-related activities during Jansma?s annual Peace Fair. The fair will take place on Wednesday, May 25 from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. in front of Building 434, across from Storke Tower.
The Peace Fair will be the ultimate exhibition of what students in the ?Communication and Peace? course have been learning and working on throughout spring quarter. Students in the class have been working on various projects that range from constructing their own personal definitions of peace to creating their own theories explaining how to communicate peace in various ways. The Peace Fair will display an assortment of student projects that demonstrate how we can create or reinstate peaceful communication with others. Additionally, multiple campus and community organizations will be present to inspire and teach attendees how to incorporate the concept of peace into their everyday lives.
One such community organization that will be have a table at the fair is Let it Go Yoga, a therapeutic-based organization located in downtown Santa Barbara. The company will show attendees how they can use yoga as a meditative practice to create a personal experience that is both calming and liberating for the body and mind. This local yoga organization will promote peace by helping participants learn to change negative thought patterns and release personal fears, break undesirable habits, and empower the attendees to make positive life changes by adopting new patterns of behavior.
Kaia Klissner, a third-year Communication major, is one of the students who will be presenting her peace project at the fair. Klissner?s project will demonstrate her individual ideas on how to communicate peace in personal relationships.
Klissner says that she will be ?hosting a letter-writing table at the fair which will allow participants to compose letters to friends or family members whom they have had differences with in the past.?
By doing so, participating letter-writers can take the first step in restoring peaceful communication in their personal relationships. One of Klissner?s intentions is to demonstrate that while we may have significantly different beliefs than those of our family members and friends, by acknowledging and accepting these differences individuals can find harmony in relationships.
?I believe that through writing these letters, people will feel more at peace with themselves and learn how to reinstate peaceful communication in their relationships,? said Klissner.
UCSB third-year Chantel Pozon is another ?Communication and Peace? student who will be showcasing her project at the Peace Fair. Pozon?s unique approach to promoting peaceful communication involves creating a paper chain where each link of the chain has something written on it that encourages acts of love, care and understanding.
?When someone rips off a link of the chain, it will read something like ?give a hug to five people? or ?compliment the person standing next to you,?? Pozon said.
The basic purpose of Pozon?s peace chain is for people to communicate peace and understanding by performing the acts written on each link, all while spurring a chain reaction by inspiring others to do the same.
Dr. Jansma recalls how thrilled she has been with both her students and the people who have participated in previous Peace Fairs.
?Every year I am always so impressed by the creativity of the student projects and how they engage the attendants in their activities,? said Jansma. ?The Peace Fair experience is one of relaxation, pleasure, sharing, cooperation, and exploration for everyone involved. I really enjoy when passersby make a point to stop at the fair and devote five, fifteen, or thirty minutes of their time to take part in this experience.?
?Communication and Peace? will be offered to all underclassmen during summer session whether they are Communication majors or not, and be sure to remain on the lookout for the Peace Fair that will happen across from Storke Tower this week.
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