Students from a variety of campus groups began outlining plans Sunday for “Hate Free Georgetown,” a week of activities in March intended to unite the university community and reduce the number of bias-related incidents on campus.

Coordinators emphasized that facilitating dialogue between campus groups would add to the sense of community on campus. Such a feeling of solidarity, said organizers Joshua Goode (COL ’10) and Lauren Cucarola (COL ’10), would stem the tide of bias-related incidents. The week would be the first to link different campus organizations in a campaign against violence, the pair said.

“How can we attack each other if we know each other?” Cucarola said.

Vigils and rallies earlier this year aimed to improve campus safety by demanding a more effective Department of Public Safety. According to Cucarola, “Hate Free Georgetown” week is the first step toward addressing the culture of the university and the roots of the violent incidents. Goode said that changing the culture and attitude on campus that may have led to such incidents will involve a broad coalition of student organizations.

“We’d been dealing a lot with concrete changes, better pay for DPS, better SafeRides,” Donald Burke (MSB ’10) said at the meeting. “We [had] not been putting culture on the backburner but were saying `first things first.'”

Goode sought input from attendees on how to attract the widest collection of campus groups for the event, planned for the week of March 14. He stressed that the student organizations should do the majority of the planning, rather than groups like the Center for Social Justice, Research and Teaching Service.

“The really sad thought is that it’s one Georgetown student doing it against another,” Goode said. “If it’s someone within our sphere, within our family, then that’s really where we need to start changing things. It’s important that we as students say we are a community that will not accept this for each other.”

Goode proposed having the Georgetown University Grilling Society sponsor “Hate Free Hug and a Hamburger,” a community-wide barbecue as well as field game day. The week-long event will conclude with a performance aimed at highlighting different university performance groups, he said. Coordinators will seek funding from the Student Activities Commission and Georgetown University Student Association, he said.

“A major concern to keep in the foreground is how are we [going to] reach Joe Schmo, who would never think of coming to this,” Burke said.

To increase student participation, Goode said that event organizers would join with the Office of Residence Life and create a competition for students to post sheets of paper bearing an anti-violence symbol in their dorm windows. The dorm displaying the most sheets would be rewarded. Coordinators will launch the week by distributing anti-violence symbols on buttons in Red Square, Goode said.

“The end goal is having this campus covered in symbol[s] of non violence,” Goode said. “Outside of university initiatives, [this event is] students saying we won’t hurt other students.”

Campus group leaders will meet later this week to begin solidifying a schedule for the events, Goode said.

“Violence is inappropriate at all levels, and to have a coalition like this forming is beneficial to our campus to alleviate the situation we experienced last semester and to make Georgetown a safe environment for all students,” said Kristen Focella (MSB ’12), who attended the meeting. “