A Day of Advocacy returns to CHC after a Three-Year Covid-19 Hiatus

Publish Date: March 14, 2023

“The [Crafton] campus needs to hear these speeches because they are so important, and it’s such a good experience for students to learn the importance of advocacy.”

Students across the country are not always given the opportunity to speak open and freely about their experiences and thoughts. But for Crafton Hills College’s Day of Advocacy event, Jimmy Urbanovich, the event’s creator and advisor, encourages it.

Each year, Urbanovich, a professor of communication studies, hosts A Day of Advocacy, an out-of-classroom experience where students from his Elements of Public Speaking course read aloud a prepared speech on varying topics. And this year’s festivities – held for the first time in person following the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday, March 14 – did not disappoint.

The first Day of Advocacy took place in 2008, and although the weather for this year’s festivities was not ideal for the outdoor event, each of Professor Urbanovich students was still eager to share their well-researched paper on topics such as sports and body image and the importance of knowing how to administer CPR. Max Magoon, a 19-year-old trans student, decided to draw from his own background.

While Magoon is out to his friends and peers, he is not out to his parents. And with trans-related issues making headlines across the globe, speaking freely about his story helps develop a sense of understanding for those unfamiliar with the trans experience.

“Personally, I have identified with the [LGBTQIA+] community for basically my entire life,” he shared. “I grew up in a very transphobic household, so it is really important for me to advocate for this specifically because I know that being trans is not only hard on you mentally but … hard on you physically. People will constantly be trying to demean you or physically harm you for existing.”

“My main intention with the speech was to get the question out there, because I know that for a lot of people, if they are not close to someone who is trans or … queer in some way, these issues do not come up for them. In fact, I did not know about a lot of trans issues until I started realizing that I identified with the trans label, and it’s really sad to think about the fact that if an issue doesn’t involve you, you tend to not to look at it,” he continued.

And that is Urbanovich’s focus of the annual event — to get people to think about different topics. While you might not agree with a point of view expressed, it gets people to start talking, Urbanovich explained.

“The [Crafton] campus needs to hear these speeches because they are so important, and it’s such a good experience for students to learn the importance of advocacy,” he said. “I have to confess a primary reason I continue to do this is because it has so much support on campus. Administrators love it [and] people always ask me, ‘When is Day of Advocacy?’ Even if you don’t see many people out here, there is something contagious about the energy of it.”

Urbanovich hopes to continue hosting A Day of Advocacy for years to come because, as he shared with his students and attendees, without advocacy culture dies, and staying silent is not the answer to pushing culture forward.

“I’m not an issues person. I don’t care if you’re left, right, I don’t care what you are. In fact, it concerns me when I hear one side not represented because my issue is free speech. That’s it. So, I can come out here and I can support every single topic because I am supporting your advocacy,” he said.