Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day 2018

Take Our Daughters to Work started in 1993 in response to disturbing research on adolescent girls’ loss of self-confidence. Ten successful years later, it expanded to include boys and became Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work. This year marked the 25^th anniversary of the event and CMU’s 20^th year participating. The theme for this year was Service Force: Agents of Positive Change.

After spending the morning with their CMU host, 295 children between the ages of eight and fifteen enjoyed a quick lunch while watching demonstrations from two distinctive dance groups, Street Styles and CMU Bhangra. Some brave friends got up on stage to try to learn a step or two.

Image of students and children on stage dancing

Then they separated into groups of 10-20 and attended two fun and informative 45-minute sessions run by some of the 120 volunteers necessary to organize and accomplish such an undertaking.

For those who wanted physical activity, some of the choices were tennis, Diving In, or Dance Me a Story. For the more artistic, maybe Musicians Magnified to get up close and personal with CMU student musicians and their instruments, or perhaps Purnell Center Backstage Tours to see some of the work that goes on behind the scenes to put on a show CMU’s strength in computer science and robotics led to Take Me to Your Robot, which discussed the interaction between humans and robots. Improv, Game Design and Development ran full class participation exercises in improvisation, discussed game design principles, and presented some of the digital games created at the Entertainment and Technology Center. Not forgetting “man’s best friend” on our dog-friendly campus, there was also a session on Newfoundland Water Lifesaving Dogs. These dogs have historically been trained to assist fishermen and water safety workers. Ten-year-old Jack, pictured here, has several life-saving qualification titles.

Image of volunteers and a child with a dog

This was just a small list of some of the topics! With a portable charger on a lanyard as a memento and new friends made, if just for the day, it was a successful and worthwhile day for all involved.

Thank you so much to all of the volunteers for this year's event! This annual event would not be possible without all of the contributions from our CMU community.