About The Voicebox
The Center is located on the 3rd floor of the new Campus Center. It is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every self-defined activist and activist group, as well people interested in activism are welcome to use all that the center has to offer. We are a nonhierarchical, cooperative organization. So, new ideas, volunteers, and leaders are always needed and welcomed!
Mission Statement
The purpose of the Center is to provide a physical space that supports and coordinates the activities of activist groups and individuals on the Grinnell College campus and in town. The Center will encourage and support activism of any kind at Grinnell, and it will act as a symbol of the College community's ongoing commitment to social, political, economic and environmental action.
We see the Center as addressing several problems at Grinnell:
- a lack of visibility of activism
- a lack of knowledge about activist opportunities and groups
- no central, all-inclusive physical space for supporting activism
- difficulty, particularly for students, in sustaining projects and groups over many years, after prominent activists graduate
- nonexistent, widely dispersed or inaccessible records of past activist projects and groups
- no central source for generic activist materials or books, or support for student groups interested in co-sponsoring generic activist events
- a lack of communication about activist issues between students, faculty, staff, alumni, community members and students at other colleges/universities, even though many share common interests and goals
- difficulty in learning of and participating in activism opportunities initiated by others
We foresee the Center as a hub for activity, rather than as a typical group. Its mission includes coordinating, tracking and advertising events as well as supporting organizing efforts. This also includes support for groups or individuals bringing special programs to campus, such as trainings, for which there is no group already established.
The Center will help to manage material resources as well as an activism library and central record-keeping system for activist groups and would help to sustain projects and groups over many years.
In order to make the Center connected to the wider Grinnell community and the outside world, we plan to include networking as a central feature of the Center. We would work to coordinate and publicize the activities of students, faculty, staff and the Grinnell community, as well as maintain connections with alumni and activists at other schools.
Because an integral part of coordinating activism across campus is giving activists a space to find and interact with one another, we seek to make the Center a comfortable space for activists to spend time together.
We envision an open and welcoming community, and we believe that an "activist" group or person is self-defined. Therefore, we encourage anyone who defines her/himself as an activist to be involved in the Center and make use of the resources available there.
About the Website
The logo, designed by Clare Patterson '08, was selected by a vote among Voicebox members in July 2006.
The website was designed by Mark Root-Wiley, '09, in August 2006. The website strives to be cross-browser compatible (especially Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer), Section 508 compliant, and XHTML and CSS valid as defined by the W3C.
It should be noted that the Trumba calendar's URL is not XHTML valid. The content should validate for all other pages.