Awareness weeks are dedicated to raising awareness for a cause. They’re a great thing university administrations and student associations do to discuss certain issues, but when there are too many crammed together, they take away from each other.
Students can only focus on one awareness week at a time, and when they are bombarded with multiple issues and things to become aware of, they don’t pay attention to any.
They are often held at the start of a semester—sometimes the busiest time of year for students. Students have too many other things going on at the start of the semester to have time for one awareness week, let alone multiple. Having these weeks held consecutively might make them easier to plan and advertise, but it also makes them easier for students to ignore.
The awareness weeks should be spread out more evenly across the year, or reduced to fewer weeks.This could allow students to see these weeks as something special, and worth attending, so that they might mark an event or two in their calendar and plan to attend in advance.
This would make the awareness weeks more effective in communicating their purposes to students. Awareness weeks can be an effective tool in engaging students on important topics, but it is impossible to raise awareness for every subject. In cases such as these, less can definitely be more.
