The Extraordinary: A StFX Newsletter from the Office of the President. Third Issue (2016-05-11)

              extraordinary
THE
CELEBRATING SUCCESS AT STFX
The weather gods toyed with us all spring:
intense sunlight was interspersed with
gales of wind lifting barbecues off lawns,
and mud puddles that destroyed even the
hardiest of trendy bootware. Nominations
to the President’s Council of Young Alumni
were made; final papers edited; and
nightmares of lab exams finally ceased
dancing in students’ heads. They were
replaced with the hush of exam season,
when the necessity of study was challenged
by a yearning to toss one last Frisbee with
friends or make one last trek to the Dairy
Queen. And now, our seniors have
graduated and left, carrying StFX with
them and making room for new leaders to
emerge. The campus is quiet – too quiet.
Kent Anyone passing through the SUB on Monday, March 14,
couldn’t miss it: a giant wall of brightly-coloured post-its, on
which people were writing the things that had made them
happy that day. The sentiments ranged from the mundane
(“We got McDonalds for breakfast!” and “Being early when
I thought I was late.”) to the commonplace (there were lots
of “Coffee!” stickies) to the deeply
personal (“I’m Muslim and I pray
5x/day. That’s the secret to
happiness. Trust me.”). The wall
was the brainchild of students
Clare Bekkers, Emily MacDonald, Siobhan Morris, and Ian
Townsend. They wanted to see how many people they could
reach on campus, but thought the project should be
essentially devoid of technology. MacDonald notes: “People
tend to focus on negative things, and it throws off your whole
day. We wanted to switch that thinking.” And, Bekkers added,
“we wanted it to be a bit mysterious – to pique people’s
interest.” The reaction, the team notes, was overwhelmingly
positive. As students and other members of the StFX
community passed by, they spent time reading the wall of
notes before contributing themselves. In total, more than 400
people contributed to the wall – over 2000 stickies in all. The
best part, notes Bekkers, is the snowball effect: “As people
read the wall, they got more and
more happy!” Reading about
others’ happiness produced a
positive reaction in the audience,
and for the project’s creators.
Now, they say, they can appreciate happy moments when
they happen, and MacDonald comments that the project
brought her closer to the friends and family she asked to
contribute stickies. Their next steps are to continue promoting
happiness through the Humans of StFX site, and they’d like to
keep the wall up permanently – so everyone on campus can
be reminded, daily, of the things that make them happy.
A StFX NEWSLETTER FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
extraordinary
THE
1
ISSUE 3
“As people read the wall,
they got more and more happy!”
Clare Bekkers