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COMMUNITY NEWS
BSC students combine their education and
passion to make a difference in the world
Way worth it
by Pat Cole
Every year, hundreds of Birmingham-Southern students explore social, economic, human, and
political issues across a spectrum of academic departments and in the community. Others set out for
study or service abroad.
The college’s professors encourage students to venture into the larger world and to strive to serve
a bigger purpose than themselves. This kind of personal and intellectual risk-taking contributes
largely to their experiences at BSC and affects these students’ civic engagement and sense of civic
responsibility in the post-BSC years. Here are just a few examples.
Imagine No Malaria
Maggie Ward, a junior history major, Harrison Honors
Scholar, and member of the Religious Life Leadership Team
at BSC, coordinated the college’s 2014 Veto the ’Squito
campaign, leading a “swat” team of other students on
campus to support Imagine No Malaria.
This is the sixth year that BSC’s Office of Church Relations
has partnered with Imagine No Malaria, a national
campaign of United Methodist churches and colleges
with the ambitious goal of eradicating the infectious
disease—mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa—by the end of 2015.
Hundreds of thousands of individuals and organizations
have joined the campaign created by the United Nations
Foundation, including singer-actress Katharine McPhee,
the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares; and
Sports
Illustrated
.
Under Ward’s leadership, the BSC team set out to raise
enough money for Imagine No Malaria to distribute at least
500 insecticide-treated bed nets.
They invited members of the campus community to
purchase a t-shirt with the Veto the ’Squito logo, contribute
directly to the purchase of a mosquito net, and/or give a gift
of a net with personalized cards to honor or memorialize
family, friends, coworkers, or classmates. Each $10 t-shirt
brought a net; they were sold in the Norton Atrium and at
home basketball games.
In addition, the group hosted two films,
A Killer in the
Dark
and
Mary and Martha
, each followed by a discussion,
to help students understand the science of malaria as well as
the burden of the disease on Africa’s healthcare system.
The team also came up with an innovative campus
marketing campaign featuring photos of students holding
items that usually cost around $10. One of the fliers read:
“For $10, you can buy a DVD. For $10, you can buy a net.
Save lives. Buy a net.”
At the end of the campaign, the BSC group had exceeded
its goal and raised enough money to purchase 520 nets.
“Malaria can be prevented,” said Ward, a longtime
member of Calvary UMC in Nashville. “If we can save lives
through the use of a net or the distribution of medicine, we
should do everything in our power to prevent malaria.”
Maggie Ward (left) and Shannon Thompson ’14