Dinner with Strangers: 2014

Students selected for this year’s project are cordially invited to dinner on

Sunday, November 17th, 2013 at 6:00 PM

at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in downtown Tuscaloosa featuring casual conversation with

community members featured in the Tuscaloosa, Athens, & Birmingham events from Fall 2013.

To check out the blog discussion for this topic, continue reading below.

Emily Gaetano says:

November 7, 2013 at 8:06 PM

Visiting Athens and Birmingham and meeting community members from these places showed me how college towns can serve the needs of students and residents and can help creative and artistic endeavors thrive. At Bama, there’s mostly a feeling of “college-town”, and not a place where young alumni would choose to live after college or where people feel that there is strong support for the arts. Three things I would like to discuss are: things that will encourage graduates to remain in Tuscaloosa post-graduation (maybe more things to do other than bars and football games); the housing situation in Tuscaloosa, and how where students live affects their thoughts about the campus/community and their desire to stay after graduation; and how to get the university more involved with cultural and artistic events. Maybe more efforts could be taken to introduce students to what is happening on and off campus.
So far being in DWS has been really fun and it has been great getting to visit other southern college towns. I hope all of our discussions will help us to make a positive difference in bringing together Bama’s campus and Tuscaloosa’s downtown.
Allyson Richey says:

November 13, 2013 at 9:16 PM

Through my experience in Dinner With Strangers, I have realized that the biggest take away I have come with is that, in order to achieve and explore downtown revitalization, food, art, and culture, one must have a community that supports, rallies, and thrives through these things. Communal support is critical to maintaining an environment in which people desire to move away from transience and into permanency. With this being said, I would like to discuss three points at the closing dinner:
-How do we foster art, food, and culture on a continuous basis? (ie not for a few weeks then watch it ‘die off’, so to speak)
-Is it the people or the place that make a community want to become permanent? (By this I mean, does the environment or inhabitants more support permanency?)
-Is having a thriving downtown critical to food, culture, and art, or is it just the idea of a community environment that promotes these things?
I would like to talk about these three ideas in particular in order to better understand, evaluate, and bring to fruition our goals. In order to achieve our vision, we must understand exactly what we are fighting for, and I believe Dinner With Strangers provides the environment to do so.
Lauren Chase says:

November 13, 2013 at 10:57 PM

Having had the privilege of being involved with Dinner With Strangers this past semester, we have all had the benefit of learning from community members in towns rich in diversity and culture. From the opening dinner in Tuscaloosa, and also from the later dinners in other cities, communication seemed to be a big point of discussion. How can town residents find out and access university happenings and vice versa? From Athens, the biggest take away I had was how supportive all of the community members were of each other’s artistic endeavors. From Birmingham, the most memorable thing to me was the idea of taking control of one’s history and using that to write one’s own story. This brings me to our very own beloved Tuscaloosa. Three points I would like to discuss are:

1. How can we, as university students and as town members, better communicate with each other to promote exciting things going on both on the UA campus and in the Tuscaloosa community? And once the barrier of communication is broken down, how can we continually generate a lasting mutual interest in these things?
2. What are the things that we all love the most about Tuscaloosa? How can we highlight these points in writing Tuscaloosa’s story?
3. How can we find out about and support the artistic endeavors going on in Tuscaloosa?

I’m looking very forward to this Sunday’s dinner and conversations as I feel like there has been a lot learned which leaves a lot of room for discussion. Thank you to Dinner With Strangers for providing such a wonderful opportunity to connect with both Tuscaloosa and the other cities.
-Lauren Chase
Ashley Buchanan says:

November 17, 2013 at 10:38 PM

I totally agree with what the people above have said. The only way we can really see the community thrive is if everyone is invested in its success. That includes students and community members and a huge part of that is making them aware of all the cool things going on.

Athens and Birmingham were neat to see because everyone wanted so strongly to see each other succeed. I think Tuscaloosa can lack that sense of brotherhood, at least from a student’s perspective.

I’d be interested in hearing more about how community leaders can get the word out about cool events to students and vise versa. I’d like to discuss how we can better support local businesses (on a college student budget), and I’d like to hear about how to make Tuscaloosa feel more permanent and impactful than just a temporary home until we graduate.
Dorothy Beck says:

November 20, 2013 at 3:14 PM

Hello everyone! Thank you all for helping make this Dinner With Strangers experience the best it could be. It’s amazing how much we have learned from the beginning of this discussion; over the course of these months we have been able to experience authentic discussions with some of Alabama’s (and Georgia’s) great minds. These conversations have provided us with opportunities to not only gain a greater understanding of Tuscaloosa’s needs, but also occasions for us to foster relationships with individuals we might not have engaged with normally.

Although this semester is approaching it’s conclusion, one area that we could investigate further is the identity of downtown Tuscaloosa. Mama Dixie mentioned in the closing dinner about increasing downtown’s localism, so this might be one area to pursue. Unfortunately, even as a junior I am not as familiar with the stores located downtown, but maybe the locally owned businesses (restaurants, exercise studios, etc.) could promote themselves on First Fridays or offer special deals on these nights. Another possibility to increase new student’s awareness of the downtown scene might be to include a Week of Welcome event that show cases what downtown Tuscaloosa has to offer–maybe something like a Get on Board Day, but for the downtown community? These are merely just thoughts though. Creating a sense of ownership with the downtown area would also help create ties for students downtown. Maybe University Programs could have a On the Town event in which we toured downtown and participated in an activity (art studio, Bama Theatre production, etc.)

I greatly look forward in continuing this conversation with you all! Have a great day.