BY ALLISON OPSON CLEMENT - NEWS EDITOR

Students from Dr. David Foster’s Psychology of Leadership class are gaining real-life experience with teamwork, promoting social justice through their project, a resource fair which will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov. 18 in the Werner University Center Pacific Room.

The second-annual Responsibility, Equity, Accessibility and Leadership (R.E.A.L.) Fair will create a space to promote the services of attending organizations, said Foster, who taught the course that started the first R.E.A.L. fair last fall, and urged his students to take up the challenge again this year.

This event is a chance to explore social issues facing the larger community and find help from the right source if they need it, as well as find a cause they may wish to support themselves through volunteer work or other support.

“Having the hands-on experience, taking it out of theory and into practice, has been really useful,” said Kristin Osborne, a student in the class and member of the event leadership team.

Foster explained that people are graduating college, but still lack the skills companies need. These skills include abilities like communication and getting along with other people. Training in leadership and teamwork sets students ahead of the game, he added.

“Organizations are having a huge leadership crisis right now,” Foster said. “I think these classes are good for anybody.”

The event is sponsored by Abby’s House in addition to the psychology students. Other organizations represented will include Stonewall Center, Green Dot, the Multicultural Student Union, the Office of Disability Services, Campus Public Safety, Peer Mentors, as well as over half a dozen others. According to Foster, this is a greater number than attended the previous fair.

“A side benefit would be that those organizations could network among themselves,” Osborne said. The event includes a food drive to raise donations for and awareness of Western’s resource for hungry students.

“It highlights the WOU Pantry, which a lot of people don’t know exists,” Foster said.

A drawing for gift cards to local food businesses will be held at the end of the fair. Students may enter both by donating to the food drive and filling out a survey about the fair.

Since the first program was a full year ago, Foster said, there was little left to work with, so this year’s group resurrected the event nearly from scratch in many cases.

“It kind of organically came about,” Osborne said of the process. She called this a fully collaborative effort. “We all walk around in a little pack.” There haven’t been many big issues, Osborne added, because “all the people in the group have the same objective.”

They brainstormed a list of organizations they wanted to invite, including some that were present last year as well as several new ones, narrowed that list down, and divided up the call list.
“People have had lots of good ideas and we narrowed that down,” Osborne said of the list.

The group has been working on this project since the second week of term.

“We’ve got some people and some talents that really fit,” said Foster, adding that the group members are doing very well.

Some psychology courses (including Foster’s classes), may offer extra credit for attending the fair, as well.

“These guys are doing a really good job of reporting, advertising already,” Foster said. “My goal after the first R.E.A.L. Fair was seeing it continue.”