This week marks the opening of the Social Justice Resource Center (SJRC), a project facilitated by the Social Justice Initiatives/Office of the Provost. The Resource Center, located in Room 709, 66 West 12th St, is a space where students, faculty, and staff at the New School can meet, borrow materials, read, and build community.
The SJRC has been in the making for a few years and includes materials donated by faculty and staff and those purchase through the Parsons Diversity Initiative and the Social Justice Initiatives office. The lending library consists of nearly 200 materials with a focus on various aspects of diversity, equity and social justice, including a diverse array of materials— DVDs, graphic novels, non-fiction, curricular and teaching guides and organizing toolkits. Subjects range from racial justice and anticolonialism, to histories of transgender people, the prison industrial complex, historical artwork from the Black Panther Party, to books on food justice, disability studies, hip hop and environmental justice.
The center is staffed by students. Saffo Papantonopoulou, a graduate student in Anthropology at NSSR, is working as a student assistant in the SJRC and has helped to organize the materials and promotion. When asked about the potential use of such a space on campus, she responded, “We are hoping to foster space for members of the New School community to educate themselves and others about various issues of Social Justice and the connections between these issues and histories. We want people to come, check out the books, but also talk to one another about some of these issues. Beyond that, it’s really up to members of the New School community to make what they want out of this space.”
The Resource Center is located on the 7th floor of 66 West 12th Street, in Room 709. If you are coming from the elevator, it is straight ahead to the end of the hallway, past the Orozco Room and to the left. The SJRC is open 4pm-7pm Mon-Thurs during Orientation week (until August 23). During the semester, regular hours are Monday and Friday 6pm-9pm and Wednesday 3pm-5pm.
Please come by, borrow a book or DVD, or just stop by to say hello. We hope to see you around!
You can check out our catalogue here: http://tinyurl.com/sjrc1
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