BONUS ROUND!!!!

I've realized I never uploaded this. You should give this a listen anyway because its a good way to know us!

Consent is sexy!

Hey there readers. Below is a podcast about what the goals of MPIRG and the Aurora Center are when it comes to consent culture. The wheels below will be explained with greater detail in the podcast. We will be expecting some changes for next semester as always.

Power and Control wheel shows the different types of abusive relationships.

Cycle of Violence tells us the loop of an abusive relationship

Nonviolence wheel shows what a healthy relationship should look like in place of the Power and Control wheel.

Ellie Kruger Co-Chair for MPIRG

Katie Iklee, Aurora Center's Director

Final meeting of the semiester

This was our last official meeting for the semester. What we did was talk about our elections for next semester I may no longer be an alternate but I was thinking of becoming a secretory. after all I was keeping track of everything via this blog. Despite the fact I am no longer obligated to do this by my online journalism professor, Jenny Hanson,  I still intend to update this blog on a weekly basis.

 As for my interview with the Aurora Center, expect that to be up by next week. In the mean time, here are some pictures for a preview:

 These pictures are some of the merchandise they intend to distribute soon but you can get them now if you visit the Aurora Center on 128 pleasant street.





Well fellow Auggies, good luck with finals!

Promo time!

Hey readers this week there wasn't an MPIRG meeting so I would like to talk about my audio project.

It will be about the consent culture campaign that the Aurora Center at the University of Minnesota is working on. They have produced some merchandise saying "Consent is Sexy." They've got buttons, shirts and even underwear with the slogan on it. It is a good way to not "blame the victim" and say it was the way s/he dressed. Unfortunately I do not have photos of these cloths because they'd rather I waited until they have a marketing plan.

I'm planning to interview the one in charge of the aura center on December 2nd about what they are exactly trying to accomplish with consent culture.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Green

Sorry for the delay everyone!

For this post I will be talking about GREEN WEEK!

Whats green week you say? Well Hannah Withers, our enviromental taskforce leader, suggested that we will bring up a diffrent enviromental issue everyday for one week. Stop by our table from 10am to 1pm each day to gain details as to what issue is highlighed for that day.

The days are as follows:

Monday:  Bottled Water Taste Test

Tusday:  Green Cleaning Supplies

Thursday:  Public Transportation

Friday:  Waste Disposal 

We will have activities too so stay sharp. If you are wondering about Wendsday there is another event going on so we will be unable to table; However On Wendsday we will have a discussion about solar panals off campus.

There was cake (no lie)

New updates on the whole changing school, Minnesota, and the entire world thing.

If you've been wondering around the schools even for a bit, you may have noticed some of our new posters. Cool, huh? Ian thinks we can do better. If there are any graphic designers reading this let me know so I can fill you on some details.

Speaking of getting noticed, we are currently tabling to stop the HERC act. What is that you ask...I can't really say everything here so come by our table to find out!
we are stopping this act by having students write their names and addresses on a card which we will send to the city council.

We are also planning on having something called "Green Week" from the environmental side of things. When you pass by our tables during Green Week you'll see that we will have something new each day on way s to improve the environment!

We had a cake to celebrate some birthdays so that is why the title is about cake.

How do magnets work?

Hey time for another update!

So in this episode our co-chair, Ellie Krueger did not show up because she was sick so unfortunately I do not have as much to say as I normally would. What I do have though is that we came up with several new ideas from the environmental department. first of all this guy named Mike talked about a perpetual motion device that involves magnets despite the fact that perpetual motion is considered impossible he thinks it could work, he was assigned to do research on that front.

We're also considering painting the recycling bins with the help of the art club so that they are more outstanding (in more ways then one)

And there was talk about putting up multilingual signs but I don't think that's such a big deal.

Getting the gravy train rolling

Hey there readers,

Well now that the excitement of the kick off is over, we got down to the real bees wax. This time we talked over with some of the new people that actually stayed with us one the changes they'd like to see around here. Then we discussed plans on what we can do for those issues on campus. I was with the social justice division this time but sometimes I'll report on what the environmental people are doing if I go with them. Anyway we are going to spread awareness of consent culture. Consent culture is essentially the opposite of rape culture, do not blame the victim and try to prevent this kind of violence.

This Sunday I will be going to Duluth to attend a state wide meeting where all MPIRG group representatives meet once a month. I'm going because the guy who'd normally do it is busy and I'm an alternate.

Kick off meeting results

MPIRG had its first official meeting of the semester at Augsburg and man were my fellow team members satisfied. The meeting took place @ 5:30-6:30 in the Marshall room on Thursday. If you've been around Christensen center recently we've been handing out fliers for weeks just so we'd raise awareness about who we are and what we do. Read my past blog posts if you'd like to know a thing or two. We had 42 people attend our first meeting which, according to our campus organizer Ian, will be enough to give us grant money from the Augsburg staff. Everyone was really happy that we could achieve such a turn out and that we'll have more opportunities available to come! If you are still intrested you can catch us next time 5:30 in the Marshall room.

One week untill kick off.

Once again we talked about getting new members for MPIRG so if you are a cool enough guy/girl to join please contact me. (koon@augsburg.edu)

Other then that we also wanted to work with the LGBTQA on something but due to miss communication they took it the wrong way because our representative used feminine terms when he shouldn't have. (she instead of ze) The issue which he was addressing was getting free tampons in women's bathrooms. Now being male I have no idea what going through menstruation is like, but to my understanding tampons should be like toilet paper in the bathroom.

Now for some honesty. Looking back we don't usually get along with other campus sponsored groups first Res-life and now this. Ellie Kruger, one of our campus organizers, thinks its because we get things done around here and I agree.

Here is a link to the Face book event: https://www.facebook.com/events/623405421023820/

Ally Trainning

Today we were coming up with Ideas on how we can gain more members to join our weekly meetings so I'm going to do my part and use this blog!

Do you care about social justice issues? Would you like to see improvements around not only Augsburg, but the rest your community as well? Want to impress that hot hippie chick?

WELL STOP ASKING QUESTIONS AND JOIN MPIRG!!!!
Meetings every Thursday from 5:30 PM-6:30 PM inside Marshall room


Mike Gerwe, leader of Augsburg's LGBTQIA club was also there to give us all ally training which deals with how to interact with the LGBTQIA community. He told us about pronouns, stereotypes, and gender identification. Back when things were simple, people just used male and female and based it on body parts, then treated them as such (man or woman). Nowadays its more complex.  People are showing more deviation form the traditional male/female categorization and instead coming up with something else to be called by. Not to mention that gender roles is starting to become less relevant.

Links: www.forge-forward.org  www.glbta.umn.edu/trans

Draft post-introdution

Hey there fellow classmates (among others). I am Tim Koon and this is my blog talking about MPIRG!

First off what is MPIRG? Well curious reader, MPIRG stands for Minnesota Public Interest Research Group, this means we are an activist group looking out for what we think is good for our fellow Minnesotans. We've got members from all across the state and Minneapolis is ,of course, no exception.

I will be updating our plans for Augsburg here but If you would like more information on us as a whole, visit our website in the link below:
http://www.mpirg.org/index.html