You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Student Power’ category.
A sit-in protesting the current Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip is underway at the prestigious London School of Economics.
About forty students have been occupying the LSE’s Old Theatre since last night. They are demanding that the LSE…
- condemn the Israeli attack on Gaza and demand a ceasefire,
- divest from BAE Systems, a company that provides weapons to the Israeli military,
- provide five new scholarships to Palestinian students at LSE,
- conduct a fundraising campaign for the Medical Aid for Palestinians charity,
- donate surplus books and computers to Gaza educational institutions, and
- conduct no repraisals against protesting students.
The university released a formal response to the demands expressing concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza while declaring that it “will not take a position” on the Israeli military action itself.
Passage of the DREAM Act has been voted one of the top ten agenda items for the Obama administration by members of change.org. The DREAM Act proposal is the only higher education campaign to make the cut.
According to its change.org sponsors, the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act would open a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants under the age of 30 who…
- were brought to the United States before they turned 16,
- have lived here continuously for five years,
- graduated from a US high school or obtained a GED
- have good moral character with no criminal record, and
- attend college or enlist in the military.
Here’s an article on the campaign to get the DREAM Act into the top ten and a link to DreamActivist, a site that supports passage of the bill.
President-elect Obama is on record in support of the DREAM Act. A statement of support he provided to the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities last year follows the jump…
The change.org website is running a poll on its readers’ top ten “ideas for change in America.”
They say that “the top 10 rated ideas from the final round will be presented to the Obama administration on January 16th at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC,” and that at the NPC they will “announce the launch of a national advocacy campaign behind each idea in collaboration with our nonprofit partners to turn each idea into actual policy.”
Anyone can vote, and the polls close at 5pm Eastern time this afternoon. There are several education-oriented ideas among the leading proposals, and the United States Student Association is urging its members and allies to vote for two in particular — passage of the DREAM Act and student loan forgiveness.
Go check it out.
The Associated Student Government at Northwestern University has been busy this winter.
In recent weeks, ASG has gone live with four different online projects serving the student community — a ride share board, a ratings site for off-campus housing, a research assistance site, and a student guide to academic majors.
The new programs are part of a strategy to shift ASG’s emphasis toward student-directed projects, an ASG representative told the Daily Northwestern. The student government’s operations director estimates that the ride share program has already saved students $15,000 since it went live in early December.
Now, none of these projects stand at the cutting edge of radical activism, it’s true. But each is intended to make a positive practical difference in the lives of students at Northwestern, and several — I’m thinking specifically of the housing site and the academic majors guide — are designed to equalize information imbalances that put students at a disadvantage in dealing with other university community members.
Student services and student advocacy are too often treated as alternatives, or even opposites. In my experience, a strong student government is likely to be (or become) an activist student government, and serving students’ needs makes a student government stronger.
The Texas Student Association, a statewide student advocacy and lobbying group, has officially constituted itself at a meeting on the University of North Texas campus.
Texas’s last statewide student association was founded after the Second World War but went dormant about a decade ago. The new group, organized over the course of the last few months, is moving forward in 2009 with a lobbying agenda that emphasizes pocketbook issues.
A quick Google didn’t turn up a website or contact information for the TSA, but if any of our readers have that info, we’d be glad to post it.
studentactivism.net 
Recent Comments