This semester, the University Unity Project is under new management. Formerly a Student Council program, the project is now run by an independent committee consisting of about 30 CIO representatives. The stated goal in moving the project from under Council's purview was to encourage ownership and more consistent involvement from other members of the University community.
The Unity Project seems to be having a difficult time moving forward, however. This year's theme is environmental sustainability, and the project's fundamental mission is to promote collaboration among different students groups to further that cause. Regrettably, the project seems to have played little or no role in other organization's environmental sustainability efforts so far this semester.
Leaders of the project have recently acknowledged the logistical challenges involved in getting things up and running. For example, the committee is still in the process of figuring out how it will encourage CIO representatives to attend its regular meetings, Unity Project Co-Chair Sheffield Hale said. All indications are that the project is still primarily in its planning stages, despite the fact that the current semester is more than halfway complete.
The project got off to something of a late start this year due to its organizational restructuring. Because of that challenge, the committee must now work even more feverishly than most student leaders to enact real change before the year is complete. The timeline most student organizations work with is already quite limited - leaders' terms are over in the blink of an eye.
If the aim of the Unity Project is to direct the University community's energy toward a common goal, it cannot afford to sit by idly for this long. Programs like Council's Environmental Sustainability Committee's coffee mug initiative have been implemented with no apparent Unity Project support or collaboration. Likewise, Dining Services' Campus Sustainability Day would have been a key opportunity for the Unity Project to make an impact. If the project committee played a hand in either of these endeavors, it did so without any self-promotion.
There are a few welcome signs of partnership. Council's Athletic Affairs Committee, for example, is participating in the Unity Project by exploring ways to improve sustainability at University sporting events. It's reassuring to see student groups take up the project's cause, but the action has been too slow in coming. The degree of actual cooperation between the project committee and the Athletic Affairs Committee is also indiscernible.
It is not too late for the Unity Project to facilitate these initiatives or to start new ones. The window of opportunity, however, is becoming distressingly narrower. The community solidarity the project aims to deliver is yet to be seen.
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