Henry DeJong Ethnography Draft Its 930pm on a Tuesday in the fall of 2013.

You open the doors to the residential dining hall on the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC). You walk to the entrance of the cafeteria. You start hear to hear music and loud chatter. A few more steps to the right and there are 6 rows of black chairs, divided into two sets of 8 seat columns. There is a temporary gray wall with 1 row of 20 seats against it. In the front there is a 5-foot tall 7-foot wide projection screen on a stand, next to two black speakers, and a podium. You can see people about 80 people, most standing, and most talking. Theyre all 18-23 and students at UNCC, youre at Campus Outreach. People continue talking and standing until 9:37, when they begin to sit. A few more minutes pass and then the lights turn off. A video begins displaying on the projector. Its a promotional video for a retreat. Once the video ends the lights go on and the mens coordinator, Gavin begins running down the right side of the seats. He claps and cheers and most people join him until he reaches the front. A powerpoint presentation soon begins. Campus Outreach has one major claim. Their claim is to help students strengthen their spirituality through Christian teachings. Campus Outreach tries to achieve this claim through three major methods. The first is through informality and socialization in their group. The second method is teaching Christianity through analyzing scripture. The third way this is achieved is through student involvement in the community. One way that Campus Outreach tries to help students with spirituality is through creating a comfortable environment. They try to create this through humor and an informal set up. If you look around the room you will see sneakers, jeans, tshirt, and even sweatpants. People will very often joke with one another before, during, after the presentations. The mens coordinator even himself will often wear a backwards hat, and the director of the entire community is always sporting a Boston Red Sox hat. Campus Outreach is held in the back of a cafeteria, which would give one the impression it is not so serious. Throughout the weekly presentations there is a lot of humor and sarcasm. When promoting the retreat to Washington DC that the community is taking part in the mens coordinator said the deal was Like a broken drum, you just cant beat it. After the joke the majority of people were laughing, partly due to the goofiness of the delivery. The mens coordinator led a major presentation that dealt with the teachings of Jesus. In the middle of the presentation he told a 5-minute story that was relevant to the passage we were covering. Most of the story was full of humor, and people more noticeably the most attentive during the story. During the presentation by the community leader at around 10:10pm the community leader said when talking about himself I thought I was gonna gets mine. While not the funniest thing if taken seriously, there was a light atmosphere and the majority of the audience laughed. Another method Campus Outreach tries to help strengthen students faith is through teaching the Bible. The bible is taught through Power Points in a 7-week series. Every week a different presenter will go through a 15 page Power Point. The slides contain several different passages from the bible, often the same book. The

presenter will break down the passage for the audience, and give the background and context for the passage. The presenter has in addition photos after the passages that are relevant to the previous passage. The presenter, especially the leader of campus outreach will ask many rhetorical questions to the audience. This is down to get the audience to reflect themselves and their lives. The presenter in the last weekly meeting I attended asked the audience, Are you full of peace and selfcontrol? The presenters will also use many metaphors in their presentations in order to help convey the message of the passage to the audience. The analogies are used to help the audience relate the passage of the bible to their lives. The final way Campus Outreach attempts to fulfill their claim is through student involvement in the community. According to the mens coordinator, his hope for the future is that the current freshmen will take leadership in the upcoming years. Even without leadership students are involved in multiple ways. Students help set up the meetings with the projectors as well as the sound system. Some students also serve as a welcome group and even create the promotional videos for the group. According to the mens coordinator the most important way students can get involved is through social interaction with the community. This is done through meals following the weekly meetings as well as retreats and weekly sports games. On top of there is a group for 50 students who wish to take leadership in helping the spirituality of other students. The idea of the student involvement is to keep the students in the community, and hopefully ensure they continue attending meetings, and therefore improve their faith. In my opinion I think the community, campus outreach does for the most part, fulfill its claim. The community does a good job and using several different methods to reach its goal. I think the social interaction is the most important thing that keeps students coming, which can in turn strengthen their spirituality. At the same time, I believe the socialization is a bit of a distraction and maybe too much emphasis is put on it. The weekly presentations are around 40 minutes, which I feel could be expanded on to cover more ground, as with the in depth explanations not so much material in the bible is covered. I think Campus Outreach better serves as a platform or stepping stone for those wanting to explore their faith, and the community certainly supplements more than anything. From personal experience, as a member of the community I can say that while not to its full potential, campus outreach lives up to its claim. Campus outreach is made up of what appears to be homogenous group of people. About 92% of people are white, 5% black, and 3% Hispanic. According to the mens coordinator since being in campus outreach the thing that surprised him most was the diversity of all the students and how students were from all different walks of life. One can identify an outside in the group quite easily. If someone is an outside they will most likely being sitting with themselves and sitting quietly. Those who are outsiders will not be as outgoing and not socialize with others. [Add >2 paragraphs answering questions listed on rubric]