Promoting human rights and social justice requires advocacy and communication. One of the most powerful means of communication is art and as global studies and studio art double major you are developing the capacity to powerfully communicate important messages about human rights. While still a student you have put your talents to use, devoting hundreds of hours to organizing a wonderful art exhibition on the topic of human rights and labor entitled “The Enduring Spirit of Labor,” which was just recently presented at the Regis Center for Art. Your work on the exhibition has been amplified by your collaboration on a related exhibition of documentary materials and a public program, “The Intersection of Art and Activism: A Public Discussion with Artists, Activists, Scholars, and Students,” also held recently at the Regis Center.
You have pursued these art projects with the same energy and passion that has led you to volunteer at the Waite House Community Center, the Children’s Law Center, and Aurora Bilingual Charter School, travel to Columbia to strengthen ties between the University of Minnesota Human Rights Program and four Columbian law schools, and engage in a wide variety of demonstrations, programs and conferences. And for the last year you have been an especially integral and inspirattional part of the Human Rights Program family centered on the second floor of the Social Sciences Building by working as the Human Rights program student assistant.
We have learned that you, like Sullivan Ballou, act from the heart, expressing the powerful loving energy within you without thought of self interest or personal gain, and doing so in the special ways that you are so uniquely suited for. We are honored and delighted to acknowledge and affirm your work and the path you have chosen. We envision with happy anticipation the meaningful contributions to human rights you will be making in the future.
Congratulations!
Elissa and Bruce Peterson, Founding Members