On Tuesday, Nov. 15, Cabrini University celebrated its 32nd Cabrini Day. With the science department hosting, the title of this year’s celebration was “Humans in their Environment: Points of Impact, Resilience, & Justice.” Some of the previous Cabrini Day topics include “Food Matters,” “COVID-19 and Human Dignity,” and “Celebrating Positive Identity and Resilience.”
Cabrini Day is an annual celebration that focuses on a specific social justice issue. There are many events throughout the day, but the highlight is an undergraduate poster presentation. Throughout the semester leading up to Cabrini Day, students prepare posters and presentations that are related to the social justice issue that was selected that year. All day and night classes are canceled for Cabrini Day and students are encouraged to attend the events throughout the day.
What students are doing
Students were given a list of possible topics to consider when preparing their presentations. The possible topics included political action and the environment, responding to the challenges of climate change, and many others.
From 10:00 a.m. to noon in the Dixon Center, more than 70 undergraduate students presented their posters.
Allison Clark, junior health science major, was one of the student presenters. Her topic was the environmental factors of vaping. “The U.S. is the seventh in deaths from air pollution,” she said. Clarke continued to say that ever since Juul, e-cigarettes, and other vaping products came out there has been a 30% increase in air pollution deaths.
Andrew Lunardi, junior health science major and a Marine Corps veteran, did his poster presentation about something he suffers from: hearing loss. “I have tinnitus, trouble hearing things a lot of time,” he said. “ I think the whole idea of this is to kind of educate people as to the prevalence of hearing loss and you know, damaging noise in the world around us.” Lunardi also said that it only takes 70 decibels to damage your hearing, which is about as loud as a hammer hitting a nail.
Keynote speaker and other events
From 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., biology and environmental science professor Dr. Carrie Nielsen gave a keynote speech called “Getting The Lead Out: What the Fight Against Leaded Gasoline Can Teach Us About Today’s Struggles for Environmental Justice.” Her speech covered the history of leaded gasoline, the effects it has on the environment, and how people can do their part to protect the environment. The event provided QR codes that led to the Catholic Relief Services Green Climate Fund website and the Natural Resources Defense Council website.
Along with the poster presentations and keynote speaker events, there were other events sprinkled throughout the day including a morning mass at the Bruckmann Memorial Chapel of Saint Joseph, lunch at Cav’s Corner, a Cabrini-themed scavenger hunt, minute to win it contests, awards presentations, a mind and body exercise, and the graduate poster session.
The graduate poster session was held in the Mansion from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., where Cabrini graduate students presented their own work.
Cabrini students can look forward to a similar event to Cabrini day in the spring. The Arts, Research and Scholarship Symposium will be held on Tuesday, May 1, and will feature poster presentations from both undergraduate and graduate students.
