I’ve often said that the most common question a historian of student activism gets asked is “why isn’t there any activism on American campuses today?” (I even took a few pages in my dissertation to explain why it’s such a wrongheaded query.) But recently another question has been gaining ground:

“What are the big issues that students are organizing around today?”

The last couple of years have seen a real boom in campus organizing on the local, state, and national level. Much of this work has been a response on the current financial crisis in higher education, but a long list of other concerns have motivated student organizers as well. And as students (and others) begin to gain a sense that this is a major moment for American student activism, student activism has flourished even more.

There’s a lot going on.

So over the next few weeks I’ll be posting a list of the top dozen student activism stories of the new academic year. Some are national, some are campus-specific. Some are ongoing, some are short-term.

This post will be the homepage for the list as it grows. Be sure to follow Student Activism on Facebook and Twitter to get all the updates as they come in.

  1. The Crisis in American Public Higher Education
  2. October 7
  3. The Midterm Elections
  4. California Crackdown
  5. The DREAM Act
  6. Students and Workers
  7. Israel Divestment
  8. The For-Profit College Fight
  9. SB 1070
  10. The UC Irvine Muslim Student Union
  11. SUNY Tuition Policy
  12. The BP Oil Spill and the Environment