By Hannah Bundrick
If you have seen advertisements around campus for StoTalks, then you will probably recognize history major Charlotte Rosen ’13. The second annual event (which will be held this year on April 27 in the Pause) is a conference at which St. Olaf College students, faculty and alumni give presentations covering a wide variety of topics to stimulate ideas for social change. Rosen will be discussing the language behind social change and innovation, particularly focusing on her experience abroad in Namibia. “I want to focus on how people discuss the experiences they have abroad and how they use language in a social change atmosphere when relaying these experiences, and I will be using examples of phrases I heard from peers when I was in Namibia,” Rosen says. She hopes to enlighten her audience as to how language is affecting larger issues of racism and discrimination through a paradox.
Rosen first became interested in the issue of social change and innovation when she studied abroad in Africa. She has had the opportunity to experience different cultures, ethnicities and backgrounds from her studies abroad in Namibia, Thailand and Norway. Selected as a Peace Scholar, she traveled to Oslo, Norway, the summer before her senior year to study at the University of Oslo International Summer School through a scholarship funded by the Nobel Peace Prize Forum. “It is basically a consortium of Norwegian Lutheran colleges and universities in the U.S. Each college sends 1-3 students to Oslo every summer to study peace and resolution while taking another class. I took the class ‘Gender in Nordic Countries,’ which was a really eye-opening experience,” Rosen says. Outside of the classroom, peace scholars also take field trips to peace-oriented places in Norway. “I took a dialogue workshop on one of the field trips and I got to meet people from the Balkans,” Rosen says.
On the home front, Rosen is also largely involved in St. Olaf’s all female A Cappella group, Agnes A Cappella. She has been involved in the music world at St. Olaf since first year and has worked her way up to being executive director of Agnes. “Singing in an A Cappella group is one of the most positive, fun and creative things that peoples can do with their voices. It’s totally cheesy and dramatic, but I can’t not smile when I’m singing with friends,” Rosen says. Although fun, it can also be challenging leading a group of peers, and it has been quite an adjustment for Rosen. “It’s 12 girls all in one room who all have amazing ideas to share, and I want to make sure all of them are honored and everybody gets a chance to shine, but at the same time somebody has to make sure we learn our music in a timely manner.” There is often a stigma at St. Olaf that people must be music majors or in the music program to be musically adept. However, Rosen disagrees with this: “The cool thing about Agnes is that people who didn’t want to do choir or who tried choir and didn’t like it, yet still are not only tremendously talented but also genuinely want to sing, are given the chance to shine. I love the choirs at Olaf and the music program, but it’s cool to bring together music majors, science majors, English majors, humanities majors, etc. who may or may not be athletes or musicians and allow their insane vocal and musical talent to be validated and showcased.” Rosen appreciates Agnes as somewhat of a blanket stitched together with different patterns. “I have gained 11 new B.F.F.’s who I would probably not normally be friends with, if not for Agnes. If you line us up, we are all so different in the ways we behave and the beliefs we have, but we are still very tight-knit,” she says.
As her time here at St. Olaf comes to a close, Rosen only has fond memories to share from her experience. “I’m not Lutheran, I’m not even Christian,” she says. “I’m a Jewish gal from the East Coast, but I have truly appreciated getting to hear so many different perspectives at St. Olaf that I probably wouldn’t have heard if I had stayed on the East Coast, especially in my religion classes. This has made my experience unique, and I don’t think there are nicer people than those right here at Olaf.”