Eyes Wide Open Across Pennsylvania
The Spring 2007 Tour
Villanova University
 On March 20th, 2007 Eyes Wide Open traveled for a second visit to Villanova University. The Center for Peace and Justice Education, who hosted the EWO during the spring '06, hosted again a year later. This year though a new student peace organization, Villanovans for Peace, served as the volunteers running the exhibit.
The exhibit traveled again all the way across the state. Arriving on campus, with imminent rain on the way, we were elated to find that there was a dry place to park the trailer of boots. With the boots safe and secure, we were able to continue on with the evenings listening training. The training lasted about an hour, and the five members of Villanovans for Peace left with a much better understanding of how to listen to people during the exhibit.
 The next morning began with a flurry of activity as we placed the pairs of boots in the center of Villanova's campus in front of the “Awakening” statue, otherwise commonly referred to as the “Oreo”. Soon after the boots were in place there were students walking all around the exhibit as they moved to and from class. The exhibit created a lot of chatter, although many of the students walked by without stopping, you could hear students begin conversations among themselves as they walked by.
The ROTC was another presence which was evident from the start of the day. Villanova has a strong program, and it happened that on Tuesday's their members had to dress in uniform so their presence was strongly felt. They were generally very stoic and seemed to ignore the exhibit for the most part.
The end of the afternoon brought a highlight of the day. One of the Villanovan's for Peace, Zach, had a class but felt very strongly about being involved in the exhibit which prompted him to ask his teacher about having the class attend the exhibit. To our surprise and excitement the entire class made their way to the exhibit and spent part of their class period looking at and talking about the exhibit.
After all was said and done we felt privileged to be able to present this exhibit again at Villanova, and saw positive reactions from many of the students who passed by.
- article and photography by Andrew Foderaro
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