Pay It Forward Campaign

CRISTINA FERREIRA, Featured Writer

The civility committee at Pace New York City started their Pay It Forward campaign in early November.

The goal of this operation is to promote civility by having students partake in random acts of kindness. Resident Advisors (RAs) are responsible for kicking off the campaign by passing a civility button to a student who they witness doing a kind act. The student who has received the button will then pass it to someone who they witness doing a kind act, and so on.

Each student who is involved can post a picture to Instagram with the hashtag #PaceCivility and will then gain two programming points.

Stacey Butler, who was previously in charge of the civility committee, originally started the campaign by passing coins among the students. This year, the NYC campus’ Resident Hall Director, Shaquana Gadsden, has brought the campaign back to life with the intention of rebranding by using the button instead.

The movement is currently geared towards residents. If the campaign is able to reach success within the school community, the hope is to bring the movement even further by taking it off campus.

However, Gadsden observes that not many students are.

“Our main goal right now is to see if it would pick up in the New York campus,” Gadsden said, “but it’s just difficult to pick up momentum. My committee is a committee of only three.”

On the Pleasantville campus, the current director of residential life, Alerie Tirsch, is in favor of the movement and hopes that it will help increase civility on campus as well as a general understanding of it.

Tirsch has worked with college students for almost 20 years and has witnessed random acts of kindness among students in her career.

She firmly supports this initiative and anticipates that the involvement will not only be limited to residents within the community.

“I am hoping the campaign can be a campus wide one where we can get resident students, commuter students, faculty, staff and administration working together for a common goal,” Tirsch said.

Gadsden has received feedback from other departments in New York who have voiced that the campaign is a great concept. The enthusiasm within the community gives Gadsden and others hope that this initiative still has a chance to grow.

“People want to get involved and pick up the pins and be a part of it,” Gadsden said. “People want to be excited and they think it’s a good idea. We all hope that this can become a bigger thing.”