The Social Justice Teach-In 2003 will be held in the Haggerty Engineering Building on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“We want to get a lot of people together to talk about things and start caring about things and realize that other people care about things too,” said senior Angie Gius, co-chair of Jesuit University Students Together in Concerned Empowerment.

JUSTICE is one of the organizations sponsoring this event.

This is the first time JUSTICE has put on an event of this size, according to members of the organization.

“I know JUSTICE has done its own teach-ins for its own group before,” said Gerry Fischer, assistant director of University Ministry and JUSTICE adviser. “They’ve done a lot of work on this — I’m really amazed at the breadth of topics and issues we’re going to take on.”

“We have done small versions before, but nothing like this,” Gius said. “We’re getting people together from the community — we have 24 topics, which is exciting.”

Senior Alysabeth Alexander, co-chair of JUSTICE, said she wanted many different people get involved in the workshops.

“Lots of organizations that I’m in, and that I know people in, put on the same events and the same people always come,” Alexander said. “We’re hoping these different events will bring everyone together, and create deeper, more meaningful conversation.”

The workshop topics cover a broad area of issues, according to Fischer.

“From environmental justice to social justice to sexuality justice, it’s all over the board,” he said.

Some other workshop topics are “Public Education in Milwaukee,” “School of the Americas” and “Misconceptions of Islam.”

The presenters come from a range of areas. They include Marquette faculty and students, local professionals and representatives from local organizations. Some of the local organizations involved are the Catholic Worker House, Casa Maria and the education group Peace Action.

“People were invited to give the workshops if they felt they wanted to and if they were prepared to do so,” Alexander said. “A lot of us felt that there was information we wanted to tackle.”

Interested students and faculty may attend by registering through JUSTICE’s Web site at www.marquette.edu/org/justice.

“I would expect it might provide a germ of interest to plant the seed of future interest,” Fischer said. “Having a little information provided might spur the interest for people to get involved.”

“Everyone — students, community members, faculty — everyone is invited,” Alexander said. “We’re hoping everyone from the community can come. We thought that would generate the best discussions.”

Other event sponsors include the Office of Student Development, Marquette Student Government, the Muslim Student Association, the Justice House, Students for an Environmentally Active Campus and Teachers for Social Justice.