Community is at the heart of the St. Bonaventure experience.

That’s what students, employees and alumni said earlier this year when they were surveyed on what values they most closely associated with the university.

On Friday afternoon, members of the university community are invited to attend a campus rally to allow them to share precisely what community means to them.

The Bona Comm{unity} Rally begins at 3 p.m. Friday in front of Plassmann Hall. The first 100 attendees will receive a free Bonaventure T-shirt.

“The purpose behind the rally is to very openly begin the conversation about respect, equity and inclusion in a celebrative way, not waiting for an incident to happen before we gather the community,” said Nichole Gonzalez, dean of students and chair of the President’s Committee on Equity and Inclusion.

“We want to give voice to what people in the community need in order to feel valued, and what they don’t want to see happen in our community,” she said.

Student leaders, faculty and staff will share what community means to them, what we need from our community to feel welcome and valued, and how we can all prevent hate from happening on our campus, Gonzalez said.

Everyone will be invited to participate in a visual Unity Project, to create a T-shirt for the Clothesline Project, and be encouraged to sign a “Not On Our Campus” pledge to respect the dignity of each person and prevent hate.

The Clothesline Project originated in Massachusetts in 1990 when members of Cape Cod’s Women’s Defense Agenda learned that during the same time 58,000 soldiers were killed in the Vietnam War, 51,000 U.S. women were killed by the men who claimed to love them.

The Clothesline is made up of T-shirts created by survivors of violence, or created in honor of someone who has experienced violence.

The Chattertons Poetry Club, SBU Dance Team and SBU’s STEP Team will perform at the rally.

The program is sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs, Campus Activities Board, Damietta Center, and the President’s Committee on Equity and Inclusion.

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. In 2019, St. Bonaventure was named the #1 regional university value in New York and #2 in the North by U.S. News and World Report.