When looking at the university we see the amalgamation of many different people and facilities that for many people simply goes unnoticed and therefore unappreciated. This can be seen through The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU). This association pushes for universities and colleges to look at how they help relate their education to the issues in the world around us. This also helps us show that we have the ability more to come together and for us to look past the bubble that surrounds them. We have to be able to look past the confounds that we are comfortable with and help approach problems with others that they may not have thought have been people that they may have worked with. This push to work with people that may have never been an obvious choice, as well as people that go unnoticed and under-appreciated, can not only be seen in our campus but as well as the readings that we did in class which was the short story Bloodchild by Octavia Butler.
In the short story Bloodchild by Octavia Butler there are some characters that go unnoticed, one example of this is the main character Gan’s parents. Although we only truly interact with only one of Gan’s parents which was his mother we see how both of his parents try to protect both Gan and his sister. For example, Gan’s father directly disobeys the order that humans may not have firearms in order to help provide a small sense of security for his family. Or through his mother refusing to eat T’Gatoi’s egg although we don’t know the exact reason she refuses the egg, we do know the side effects of it. The egg provides a state that is more sedated, the person consuming it is in a sleepy drunk like state. This coupled with the fact that T’Gatoi goes and stings Gan’s mom it makes her almost unable to properly protect Gan if something were to happen to him. The relationship between T’Gatoi and Gan’s mother seems to be at first one where they are close friends but, when I read it the second time their relationship seems more untrusting and almost hostile. I believe that Gan’s parents sacrifice in order to protect their children despite the consequences that may occur.
Another case can be seen on our own campus. The heating plant at our school helps heat all the buildings as well as the water in said buildings according to their website they provide “high pressure steam, heating hot water, domestic water, and natural gas”, affects every single building on campus.” They also provide different services like keeping the landscape in check as well as a locksmith who helps ensure the safety of the students, on the Facility Service website they claim that they provide a “safe, reliable, aesthetically pleasing building and ground”. These are vital to the safety of the school, they help to keep the college running but, they often don’t get any sort of recognition that they deserve. They are often working behind the scenes making sure things are nice to look at and that there are “provide quality maintenance services that assure safe, reliable, aesthetically pleasing buildings and grounds”. This means that the grounds that we expect to look a certain way are meticulously cared for by group of dedicated people that often don’t get the thanks that they deserve.
When looking at all of the facilities and the people that run them that go under-appreciated it’s easy to not understand how vital they are and how they work endlessly to help provide a better campus every day and that with that you can see the importance of integrated learning. Because we often don’t see how we work together as a unit and how in order to solve different problems we need to look at the different people that work on campus to make it better and the sacrifices that they make in order to provide it.
All in all, I think that it is vital to understand integrated learning and show that not everyone will be recognized and that many people are often working together to help people move as a unit and that in order to help solve bigger issues we must be able to work with people that we may not have first thought of working with and that we must make sacrifices that may go unnoticed by many people.