2014 Interviews

Student-led walk combats sexual violence

“This is a really visible way for us to show that Elon is a supportive campus for survivors,” said senior Rachel Lewis, who holds a leadership role in EFFECT. “I think a problem college campuses have sometimes is that they’ll have these resources available but they’re not translated to the students. So we’re trying to make this a really visible, activist event so that people can walk by, see what’s happening and talk to their friends.” 

 

“We are taking advantage of resources available to us on campus and trying to make them more visible,” Lewis said. “I think that by doing this, we’re showing the administration that we care about this.” 

 

Elon Volunteers! Spotlight of the Week

If you could change the world what would you do: “I would revamp the education system to focus less on lecture and more on discussion to encourage students to think beyond their own experiences and recognize that none of us have lived the same life – there is no true norm. We all carry some form of diversity, and we all carry some form of privilege. How we navigate this is something that we learn together.”

 

Seniors launch feminist literary magazine in The Pendulum

“The fact that we need feminist writing shows that it’s something we need to talk about,” Lewis said. “I think you see a lot of white, male voices represented.”

 

“I want to convince people that their voices are being heard,” she said.

 

EFFECT leads first Support Survivors Week in The Pendulum

The walk was the final event of Support Survivor’s Week sponsored by EFFECT. Co-president Rachel C. Lewis said that the point of the walk was to fight the narrative that women are “asking for it.”

 

“We wanted to show survivors that they have support in a loud and vibrant way,” she said.

 

Voices of Elon: Rachel Lewis in The Pendulum

 

EFFECT: One issue at a time in Generation Why

This university needs feminism to achieve its mission of being a diverse, safe and inclusive campus. Without an active push for equality, I do not believe that we can reach our mission because to be inclusive, we cannot just be tolerant of difference – we must actively embrace it while also ensuring that this difference does not place us in a hierarchy, with straight, upper-middle class white students getting priority and the rest of students being pushed aside and told to keep their quiet lest they burst the bubble of perfection. EFFECT is here to give voice to the concerned students who feel silenced by the culture. We want to help create change that makes it feel safer and more inclusive of all voices.

 

Welcome The Fem, a Feminist Literary Magazine! in Moonsplit Poetry

With new content rolling in every Thursday, The Fem is a feminist online literary magazine “created in Summer 2014 by writer/feminist duo Autumn Jaye Spriggs and Rachel C. Lewis.

 

Renovations to the writing center draw record number of students in The Pendulum

Rachel Lewis, a Writing Center consultant and scheduling expert, said she hopes the second wave of construction will encourage students to come to the center for help with more than just essays.

 

“People think of the Writing Center as a place where you can bring a Word document, but we do a lot more. We can help people with speeches, presentations, design issues and PowerPoints,” Lewis said. “The renovations this summer will allow us to better serve students’ multimedia needs.”

 

2013 Interviews

How Writers Can Promote Their Work In A Digital Age in Careerealism

Some of the challenges that come with engaging your audience in a digital age is the fact that everything is fast-paced and keeping a reader’s attention is hard to master. “If you do not appeal to your audience in the first ten seconds or so, they will and do close the page and move on to something better and more interesting,” said Lewis.

 

“I am able to get the same information out into the world in dozens of different ways that are tailored to my audience,” said Lewis. “We have so much opportunity to reach out to people that are even beyond our intended audience – our communication truly has the ability to be worldwide… Our communication is unlimited. To me, that is a huge advantage of the digital age.”

 

International Women Writers Magazine Launches Literary Journal in PR Log

The assistant managing editor for this second issue was Rachel C. Lewis, a student at Elon University who worked with Women Writers, Women Books for a six month period. Lewis discovered the magazine online and learned about the internship through the magazine’s first intern, Victoria Shockley, a North Carolina State University student.

 

“Rachel Lewis demonstrated remarkable initiative in inviting guest writers for the magazine; and impressive insight in selecting the submissions for the journal,” said founding editor Anora McGaha. “She’s been great to work with,” added Barbara Bos, who contributes time and inspiration on Twitter channel programming as well as guest writer outreach. Writer Barbara Bos began volunteering with Women Writers, Women Books in the spring of 2013 having connected with the site through Twitter in 2011, and writing a guest essay.

 

2012 Interviews

Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week breaks down misconceptions  in The Pendulum

“’…a lot of times we have preconceived notions about homelessness,’ said Rachel Lewis, hunger and homelessness co-coordinator for Elon Volunteers. ‘I think we generally assume people did something to deserve to be homeless. We want to give students the understanding that that’s not really how it works.’”

 

“’…in general when you go to Elon you don’t really see much of the surrounding community,’ Lewis said. ‘You assume everyone is middle or upper-middle class. But there’s a homeless shelter about 15 minutes away in Alamance.’”

 

Guest speakers encourage Elon students to recognize humanity in homeless in The Pendulum

“I think they may have said some things that Elon students might not have wanted to hear but needed to hear,” said sophomore Rachel Lewis, Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week co-coordinator. “It’s not just enough to think and write papers. You have to go do something.”