From Socrates to Ceramics
Ohio Wesleyan’s House of Thought hosted a week-long ‘Thought Week’ from October 17-23. The series of events included a Free Ceramics Workshop designed to allow students to create and discuss artwork. (Photo by Alex Crump ’13)
Ohio Wesleyan’s House of Thought was founded on the principle of extending critical thinking beyond the classroom to the entire student body. So it comes as no surprise that OWU’s SLU (small living unit) hosted “Thought Week,” a series of events designed to encourage intensified discussion, thought, and promotion of ideas and perspectives of all members of the campus.
From October 17-23, the house hosted a different event each day of the week, planned by all house members. On Sunday, “Meet HoT (House of Thought)” gave students a chance to do “all kinds of thinking except the kind that has anything to do with classes,” says house member Mike Frye ’11.
On Monday, in collaboration with the Creative Arts House, House of Thought showed avant garde short films from the 1920s and 1930s in the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center.
“Dr. Carpenter, professor of English, came to the viewing and led a really great discussion on what film means to you,” says House of Thought moderator Demitra Brown ’11. Both houses agree that it was a very successful event.
“Tie-Dye Lies” was the event on Tuesday. Each student brought false assumptions and lies to write on a T-shirt. The tie-dyed T-shirts were then hung in front of Hamilton-Williams Campus Center. The goal was to “encourage individuals to not judge a book by its cover and to dig deeper when they hear an assumption being made,” says Frye.
On Wednesday, the house hosted Socrates Café, which they host every Wednesday. It gives students and professors a place to discuss their ideas rather than debate them.
“Socrates Café is always interesting, and this was the biggest one we’ve had this year,” says Brown.
“Free Write” Thursday gave students the opportunity to put their ideas into words. They wrote about anything that they felt at the time, free of editing constraints.
Friday’s schedule allowed students to step back to the days of middle school, at the house’s Middle School Dance Party. The members of the house “chaperoned” the party as middle school teachers, while students dressed up in their favorite middle school outfits and danced the night away to the hits of the ’90s.
Students explored their artistic sides on Saturday. The house hosted a free ceramics workshop. This event gave a larger number of students access to creating and discussing artwork.
“There were a lot of non-SLU members at the ceramics event. Our goal is to expand our events beyond the SLU community. It feels really successful when people who aren’t from the SLUs come to the events,” says Brown.
‘Thought Week’ may be over, but the house has many plans for the future. They will host a showing of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” to support the LGBTQI community on November 13. In addition, their quarterly magazine, ResNova, published collaboratively with the Creative Arts House, is due out on November 15.
House of Thought member Colin Rogers ’12 believes that ‘Thought Week’ was very successful, and he enjoys being a part of the SLU community.
“It’s not just a place to live, it’s a proactive statement about what you want to do with your time here [at OWU] and how you want to engage with the campus. ‘Thought Week’ was a reflection of that and something we will definitely do next year.”