Campus Marks World AIDS Day with Performances, Quilt Viewing

Ioana Patringenaru | Dec. 6, 2010

Students take part in a flash mob performance.

They blended in like students just going about their business at lunchtime. But as soon as music came on the speakers at the Price Center Plaza, they started dancing. They were part of a flash mob performance put on by the Butterworth Dance Company to mark World AIDS Day at UC San Diego Wednesday.

It’s important to mark World AIDS Day to honor the memory of those who passed away; remember those who live with HIV; and talk about prevention, so the virus doesn’t take any more victims, said Shaun Travers, director of UCSD’s LGBT Resource Center.

The overall theme for this year’s daylong celebration was “Act Aware.” Artists around the world, and here at UCSD, are engaged in the fight against HIV and AIDS, Travers added. “Here at UC San Diego, we’ve got talent all over the place,” he said.

In addition to the flash mob, the day’s performances included the UCSD Gospel Choir, the a cappella group the Tritones and visual arts professor Michael Trigilio. Students also staged performance pieces all across campus. Some students wore black clothes and were joined together by red ribbons. Others wore their street clothes and danced silently. Others asked students for support to fight AIDS.

They all converged onto Library Walk, where they took part in a die-in in front of the Geisel Library. As the students lay on the ground, UCSD’s carillon played original music composed for the day’s celebrations.

Like every year, members of the UCSD community also had the opportunity to view portions of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest ongoing community arts project in the world. This year’s sections displayed family photographs and notes from victims’ relatives and friends.

Vice Chancellor Penny Rue reflects on panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

“Never say good-bye. Good-bye means forever,” one note said on a square dedicated to Joseph Firicano.

“Sweet Pooh Bear, we love you,” said another dedicated to a woman named Carrie Waltz-Porter, by her parents, her husband and her two sons.  

Of course, treating and curing AIDS is the end goal. Wednesday, UCSD showcased some of the efforts here and abroad to do just that.  Dr. Allen McCutchan spoke about a UCSD-run program that aims to treat AIDS in Ethiopia. Five UCSD doctors travel in country for up to six weeks every year to train doctors, nurses, health officers and lab technicians. The program is funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, an initiative that spans Africa, South America, Russia, India and China.  

“This is the largest international public health intervention in history,” McCutchan said.

Ethiopia sorely lacks a good medical infrastructure. There are about 2,000 doctors and about 15,000 nurses in a country that has about 80 million residents. UCSD doctors work specifically with the military and the prison system, a task that’s not always easy, McCutchan said.

Still, they were able to help patients like a 33-year-old Ethiopian man diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2003, who then tested positive for HIV. At the time, that meant he had to find $400 a month for medications. He sold his home and kept working. But he was about to go bankrupt when the U.S.-funded initiative finally reached Ethiopia and provided him with free medications. Last time UCSD doctors checked on the man, his condition had stabilized. His wife and one of his children had been diagnosed with HIV and were receiving treatment as well. Without U.S. help, the man would have died, McCutchan said.