Advertisement
“We are social people, and we need other people,” Reese said.“If we don’t have a family or are displaced from our biological family, we tend to make friends, which become our other family.”
Reese has been working with a group of Viterbo students and faculty since May to build the university’s annual humanities symposium around the concept of friendship. The symposium, “Friendship: The Other Family,” will be Monday and Tuesday at Viterbo.
“We try to pick topics that are the heartbeat of our area but also hopefully speak to needs across the county and the world,” Reese said.
Although friendship is a broad term, Reese said, various presentations will explore its many facets.
Several highlights of the two-day symposium will be a look at the differences between how men and women make friends during “Gender Differences in Friendship”; how to be friends with someone who has opposite political views during “Friendship Across Political Divides”; why it is important to have spirituality as a part of friendship in “Spiritual Friend-ship”; and building friendships across cultures based on one woman’s experience in Africa during “Cross Cultural Friendships: Valuing Hospitality and a Limitless Family.”
The symposium will include more than a dozen presenters and other activities.
Participants will have a chance to ask questions of speakers as well as other representatives from agencies in the Coulee Region that are based on building friendships during a panel discussion at 1:15 p.m. each day. Agencies represented will be Coulee Region AODA, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Club and Couleecap, among others.
“Friendship is not just knowing someone. It is being willing to invest yourself in someone else,” Reese said. “I hope the outcome of this is that everyone asks introspectively, ‘What kind of friend am I?’ ‘How can I be a better friend?’ and ‘How can I be a friend to more people?’”
IF YOU GO
All events are free, and registration is not required. For more information, contact Bill Reese at (608) 796-3708 or wjreese@viterbo.edu. Here’s the schedule of events:
Monday, Feb. 4
Friendship: A Gift for a Lifetime, 9 a.m., Fine Arts Center Main Theatre, with Tom Thibodeau, assistant professor of religious studies at Viterbo University.
Cross-Cultural Friendship; Valuing Hospitality and a Limitless Family, 10 a.m., Fine Arts Center Main Theatre, with Katie Krueger, resource development manager for Sun Prairie (Wis.) Area Schools.
The Good Things Good Friends Do for Us: Friendship’s Role in the Moral Life, 11 a.m., Fine Arts Center Main Theatre, with Paul Wadell, professor of religious studies at St. Norbert College.
Panel Discussion — Friendship Close to Home: Special Ways for Special People, 1:15 p.m., Fine Arts Center Lobby, with morning speakers and other guests.
Film discussions, about “Cinema Paradiso” and “The River Runs Through It,” 3 p.m., Reinhart Center, with Viterbo honor students.
A Particular Kind of Love: The Kaleidoscope of Friendship, 7 p.m., Fine Arts Center Main Theatre, with Mary Garman, professor of religion at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind.
Tuesday, Feb. 5
Spiritual Friendship, 9:30 a.m., Fine Arts Center Main Theatre, with Marci Madary, affiliation
co-minister for the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
Gender Differences in Friendship, 10:30 a.m., Fine Arts Center Main Theatre, with Marlene Fisher, associate professor of sociology, social work and criminal justice at Viterbo University.
Friendship across Political Divides, 11:30 a.m., Fine Arts Center Main Theatre, with Keith Knutson, assistant professor of history at Viterbo University.
Panel discussion — Friendship: Where Do We Go from Here?,
1:15 p.m. in the Fine Arts Center Lobby with morning speakers and guests.
Film discussions, about “Without a Trace” and “Midnight Cowboy,” 3:30 p.m., Reinhart Center, with Viterbo honor students.
KJ Lang can be reached at (608) 791-8226 or klang@lacrossetribune.com.
