Julie Elliott is starting her second year as Northwestern’s Dean of Student Life with a bang as she introduces a whole new program to the campus.
Last year she established Campus Conversations, but this year she has partnered up with Hannah McBride, Resident Director of Stegenga Hall, to create a Sexuality and Love workshop series.
“We wanted to host conversations that were important to students, and this year we chose the topic of sex and love,” Elliott said.
The series will be broken into eight sessions, with each focusing on a different issue.
“We felt like making the conversation into eight different parts throughout the year would make it more manageable and hopefully easier for students to attend,” McBride said.
The eight topics to be discussed are sexual myths, same-sex relationships, singleness, sexual abuse and harassment, gender roles, pornography, marriage and dating and the biology of sexuality.
The idea for this new series came from the popularity of the Steggy sex panel.
“So many people found that (Steggy sex panel) helpful and informative,” McBride said. “It was just a great way to start conversation. We wanted to try and move it to an all-campus conversation.”
To make the environment as comfortable as possible for the student, the majority of the hosts for the sessions are RDs or faculty members.
“The idea is that this is a place that students can come and safely and openly share their ideas on these topics,” Elliott said. “That’s why we’ve made these events for students rather than for the larger community.”
Each session will have a different format. Some will be a panel. Others will be a single speaker. They will all have one thing in common: conversation.
“Every session will have an interactive part to the discussion,” Elliott said.
These types of conversations can be uncomfortable to have and difficult to attract people to attend.
“I will just straight up say originally when I heard about it I thought there was no way I would go,” Will Norris said. “But then I heard Julie Elliott was doing it and I feel like she has really good views.”
Elliott will be speaking at two of the sessions. Prior to coming to NW, she was on the faculty at Eastern University where she taught Christian Ethics for ten years.
“Everyone is a sexual being,” Elliott said. “Whether you are married or single, these are issues that should matter to you. This will hopefully answer a lot of the questions that students have.”
Some students aren’t just planning to attend because of their interest in the speakers, but also because of the benefits the conversation could have to the campus.
“I think this has its benefits because I think it isn’t a conversation that happens often, especially in Christian circles,” Brett Gudeman said. “So it’s kept hush-hush in your youth group growing up in the church and so kind of what you know about sexuality is what you’ve heard from your friends or it’s through the grapevine.”
Other students agree that the school will benefit from an open discussion on sex.
“The benefits are the information the students will receive.” Jaclyn Dykstra said. “I think people should be informed because it’s a part of life. I think we should talk about it, even though it is awkward.”
“I think students on campus will benefit from this because they are now opening communication on campus,” Angie Gornik said. “We need to be able to talk about sex in a healthy way in our Christian community.”
The creators of the program hope the students feel comfortable enough to come to the sessions.
“I hope it will be a starting place for healthy dialogue,” said McBride. “I want people to feel confident and healthy and feel comfortable talking about it and what that means for them.”
Elliott also has her own goals of what she hopes students take away from these sessions.
“I hope they gain a better understanding of how to live as Christians in their bodies,” Elliott said. “Our body and our spirits need to live in a way that honors God.”
Whatever students views may be, they are encouraged to step out of their comfort zone and attend the new Ngaged series this year.
The first Ngage session was Wednesday, September 11 in the Proscenium Theater. “Myths about Sex” was hosted by McBride and Kendall Stanislav. The two brought humor into an uncomfortable subject for students as they discussed eight myths the church often presents to students about sexuality.
Although there was concern that there would be a lack of interest in the session, the theater was over-flowing causing students to sit on the stairs to the balcony. Students were greeted with Lets talk about Sex playing on repeat to create an open atmosphere for conversation.
“I liked that this event opened up dialogue to have real conversations about tough topics,” Beatrice Mars said.
The session was a conversation-based event. McBride and Stanislav would present a sexual myth and open the floor for student participation. Students participated so much in the open-floor conversation that the event time went over the expected hour, and students were encouraged to continue their conversations on their own time.
There was plenty of chatter about the event as students exited the theater.
“Having speakers that come from both sides of the argument made it comfortable to talk about difficult issues,” Katie Thomson said.
The majority of students left the session with more questions than answers.
“I feel like this encouraged us to talk more and discuss what we thought about things and what we thought was true and wasn’t,” Maddie Booher said. “It opened a lot of questions for us to think about.”
Students are encouraged to attend the next Ngage session on October 8 entitled “Theology of Sex and Marriage” hosted by Elliott and Harlan Van Oort.