From the four corners of the Quad, the music of instruments from different cultures will summon the campus to reaffirm its commitment to community at a noon event Friday, May 18.
"A Call to Community" will focus on the importance of community and how the faculty, the staff and students - individually and collectively - can help foster appreciation for diverse cultures and backgrounds, different perspectives and civility.
The event will launch a hate-free campaign and is one of several initiatives to address issues of campus climate following this year's incidents of violence and bias, incivility and tensions over the contested student election.
"We within UCD make up different interests, perspectives and communities. But together our whole is greater than the sum of our parts, " said Jeremy Rye, student assistant to the chancellor and a sociology major.
"The challenge at hand is to create a livable place for all of us here," he wrote in the California Aggie. "It is my challenge. It is your challenge. It is OUR Challenge."
Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef agrees. "Essentially everyone who joins us here at UC Davis has come to a community that is more diverse than the one they left," Vanderhoef said. "Learning to live with and enjoy that diversity is one of the great out-of-class university experiences our students can have.
"This 'call to community' reminds us," he added, "that like all education, we have to work at making it happen. Nothing comes automatically."
The event also will celebrate the campus's "Principles of Community," an expectation of behavior adopted in 1990 and signed by representatives of the faculty, staff and students. Those who attend will be invited to sign a personal pledge to follow the principles, and a pledge for student organizations also is being drafted.
"The 'Principles of Community' reflect the values and principles that bring us together," said Janet Gong, assistant vice chancellor of student affairs and one of the event's organizers.
She said freedom of expression and an understanding of diverse backgrounds and experiences create the heart of a university community. "Hearing things that are new, different - and sometimes troubling - allows us to think critically about what we value."
Students also will have an opportunity to sign up to help with other events related to the hate-free campaign and to learn about campus and city of Davis resources that foster community or respond to related problems.
Speakers at the event will share why community is important to them and what they will do to strengthen the campus community. They will include the chancellor and representatives of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff and the city of Davis.
The event also will include a reading of student poetry, a ceremonial tree planting and upbeat music played by a disc jockey.
As part of the hate-free campaign, buttons with the slogans "Hate stops with me" and "Respect starts with me" will be distributed at the event. Students and staff and faculty members working on the campaign plan to develop posters and to have a presence during fall orientation activities.
"We want to communicate that Davis is inclusive and rejects all manifestations of bias and hate," said Erica Alfaro, one of the coordinators of the campaign and a senior student.
The campaign is being organized by a subcommittee of the Task Force on Campus Community, which is expected to make its report, coincidentally also on May 18, to Carol Wall, vice chancellor of student affairs.
The task force was asked to discuss the issues challenging the campus's ability to "live the 'Principles of Community'"; review existing programs that address issues of community and consider the value of coordinating, consolidating or expanding existing programs; and identify areas for the development and implementation of new approaches.