What Makes A Community?

By Elisha Wisdom

Being back in Tallahassee, I feel like I have come back to the same community, but in some ways, it feels like a new one. I am a part of a couple different cultural environments here in Tallahassee:  My church environment, my campus ministry’s environment, and the FSU Honors community. My church environment is largely familiar and very multigenerational, and I have appreciated the chance to get to know people in my church who I normally wouldn’t talk to during the school year. My campus ministry is a lot smaller during the summer as most people are at wherever they are from, but it has been good reconnecting with so many friends. Finally, my Honors environment, which is composed mostly of students and staff involved in higher education, is similar in terms of the staff I interact with, but many of the students are freshmen whom I have never met.

My cultural environments here in Tallahassee are constantly shifting between ethnically diverse, predominantly white, and predominantly black. The same is true for the values of the communities I am in; some, like my campus ministry and friend group, are more collectivist and close-knit, while the Honors community is much more individualist and achievement-oriented.

In my first week back in Tallahassee, I have noticed that communities do not have to be big to be communities! It can be as few as five people having dinner together at the Union. There’s “levels” to community as well; the Tallahassee community and FSU community, but so many smaller communities that all comprise them. I rarely think big picture about the “FSU community”, since the school is so large, but ever since the shooting I have been thinking more about how we students, staff and faculty are a collective. 

Here is a photo from near the Student Union earlier today when I was going to my first data-collecting interview!