Otterbein joins effort to incite acts of kindness

College students are back in classes across central Ohio.

Better print those syllabi and scope out your favorite corner of the library. Time to get used to waiting in line for the shower and accept that the price tag of that required textbook really have that many digits.

Amid the feverish mix of exams, advising sessions, student organization meetings and group projects, could there be room for potted plants, sharing warm notes or community service?

Absolutely, says Otterbein University.

The Westerville university is partnering with the Columbus Foundation’s Kind Columbus initiative. Throughout the year, university leaders, students and local community members will be actively working to incorporate acts of kindness into their routine.

The effort began thanks to an anonymous Columbus Foundation donor who was particularly interested in spreading kindness throughout the community, said Kelley Griesmer, senior vice president at the foundation.

The foundation began testing some community-wide projects to see where they could take the kindness idea. The

result was Columbus Kindness Month, in February, during which the foundation worked with the local nonprofit Besa, encouraging community members to perform acts of kindness.

The positive response led to the establishment of the full-fledged kindness initiative at the Columbus Foundation, Griesmer said.

It made sense for Otterbein to help with the project, said university and foundation leaders, because of core principals — such as inclusivity, equality and service — already in place there.

“They weren’t really new to Otterbein,” university President Kathy Krendl said. “But (this partnership) has shone a new light on the importance of this kind of initiative.”

University officials got things going at the end of last school year, when they encouraged graduating students to write thank-you notes to someone who had helped them along the way.

Otterbein continued this year by growing its annual fall service

program, which brought 400 first-year students together for a day of giving back at 32 sites across the community. The university also welcomed faculty and staff members back with a potted plant, asking each staff member to pass on the plant to someone else as an act of kindness.

Most recently, Otterbein spearheaded efforts among Ohio’s independent colleges and universities to give back to college students in Texas affected by Hurricane Harvey. Students at each school were encouraged to make an online donation to help Texas students replace day-to-day college items lost in the disaster.

The university also will lead a research component as part of the kindness project, measuring acts of kindness and their impacts.

“It’s one thing to commit acts of kindness,” Krendl said. “It’s another to count them.”

It’s yet another thing to try to make sense of what acts of kindness can mean.

“What difference does it make? What is the

impact?” Krendl said.

“When a community focuses on a value like kindness and the many ways it can impact people and connect people, how does that build this resiliency into this community?” Griesmer said.

There’s nothing to lose in being kind, said Josh Plichta, an Otterbein public relations and health communications major who helps run the school’s communityservice plunge.

“Why not? It takes minimal effort to be kind to someone and to help someone out in their day,” said Plichta, a senior. “The sooner we start that and the sooner most people in Columbus realize that, the better a city it will be.”

It’s not that kindness is absent, said Griesmer, but this initiative looks to harness it, share it and talk about it.

“It’s just a matter of lifting it up and making it a celebration of all it can be, as opposed to that thing that we take for granted,” she said.