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The United States Student Association’s 62nd annual National Student Congress opens at the University of Colorado at Boulder in eleven days.
USSA, founded in 1947, is the nation’s oldest national student group, and its pre-eminent student government organization. I got my start in national student organizing in USSA, and I’m always thrilled to go back.
This year, I’ll be running a workshop, co-facilitating the Congress’s people of color “allies space,” and lending a hand in various other ways over the course of the week.
I’ll have more to say about the allies space later, and I’ll be blogging (and tweeting) from the Congress once I get there. In the meantime, here’s the title and description of my workshop, scheduled for Thursday, July 23rd, at two o’clock:
Media and Social Networking for Student Activism, Past and Present
Long before the creation of the internet, campus organizers were social networkers. What can their strategies teach today’s activists, and how can today’s students use new media and online networking to advance their work? This workshop, led by historian, activist, and blogger Angus Johnston, will explore the role of technology, media, and human contact in historical and contemporary student organizing.
Media and Social Networking for Student Activism, Past and Present
Long before the creation of the internet, campus organizers were social networkers. What can their strategies teach today’s activists, and how can today’s students use new media and online networking to advance their work? This workshop, led by historian, activist, and blogger Angus Johnston, will explore the role of technology, media, and human contact in historical and contemporary student organizing.
Hope to see you there!
There’s a good short post up at the law blog The Volokh Conspiracy on the do’s and don’ts of bringing a speaker to campus. (It’s intended for Federalist Society clubs, but most of the advice is universal.)
Here’s the meat of it:
Debates seem to get more of a turnout than lectures.
If you can’t set up a head-to-head debate, set up a two-person panel, or a talk-plus-commentary.
Events that involve a local professor — a debate, a panel, or even the professor’s just introducing a guest speaker — will probably get more of a turnout.
Publicize, publicize, publicize, using all the tools at your disposal — e-mail, flyers in mailboxes, postings on bulletin boards, postings on class chalkboards, if your school allows that, and whatever else you can think of.
For topics, the usual sexy ones are good: affirmative action, gun control, abortion, church-state separation, campaign finance, and the like. Other topics can work as well, especially if you can find a well-known visitor. But generally speaking the old standards work well.
If you want to bring in a relatively prominent speaker from out of town, offer to coordinate with other chapters in your city, so that the speaker can give several talks on one trip.
Provide lunch — the better, the better.
June 4 update: Although it wasn’t the point of this post, I should probably mention that I’m available for campus speaking engagements myself.
Update: Here’s my review and analysis of the case., and here’s my take on Sotomayor’s perspective on race and gender in the judiciary.
Back in January I reported on the case of a high school student who was barred from running for student government after she referred to school administrators as “douchebags” on a LiveJournal blog.
Now comes word that federal judge Sonia Sotomayor, widely believed to be on Obama’s Supreme Court shortlist, issued a ruling in that case a year ago — and it wasn’t a good one.
According to media studies prof Paul Levinson, Sotomayor was part of a panel that ruled against the student on the grounds that high schools have a responsibility to instill “shared values,” including a “proper respect for authority,” in students.
Ouch.
I haven’t had a chance to read that court’s ruling in full yet, but I’ll update this post when I do.
The Iowa Daily published a front-page article yesterday on the arrest records of the members of the University of Iowa Student Government.
The article, which was based on public records searches, reported that ten UISG members “have criminal charges other than traffic violations,” mostly citations for underage drinking or public intoxication.
The article names four of the ten offenders, providing details of the records of each:
- The SGUI vice president, who picked up a public intoxication charge last year.
- A senator who has seven infractions on his record, five of them for public intoxication.
- A senator with six infractions, including two charges for using false ID to obtain alcohol.
- A senator with two underage drinking charges and one for theft.
Not all of these charges have resulted in convictions or pleas — the article notes that at least one case is currently pending.
The article suggests that this information raises a “question for UI officials — along with current and former UISG members” as to “how much those tickets affect representatives’ credibility and ability to lead the students.”
The student government at the University of West Georgia is looking to cut funding to the school’s student newspaper in retaliation for an opinion piece that mocked fraternities.
The day after the West Georgian ran a column called “Join a Frat with Buck Futter, Jr.” student body president Alan Webster — a fraternity brother himself — introduced a bill that would freeze the paper’s funds on a “temporary yet immediate” basis while the university explored alternative ways to “allocat[e] institutional funds to extend interesting, informative, accurate, and responsible information in a manner that sheds a positive light on the University.”
The bill was passed by the student government and is being reviewed by university lawyers prior to implementation.
The offending column described frat members as “over-aggressive alcoholics that have no sense of responsibility,” and said that the university repeatedly lets “frats off the hook despite their incessant rule-breaking and idiotic antics.” It claims that frat members keyed the word “FAG” into the finish of a Resident Assistant’s car, and went unpunished “because University Police never actually investigate any crimes against students.”
It also suggests that UWG fraternity members regularly have sex with each other and rape passed-out female students.
studentactivism.net 
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