Announcing himself as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States just now, Barack Obama declared that “the chance to get a college education should not be a privilege for the wealthy few, but the birthright of every American.”
From The New York Times comes word that small private colleges, anxious to increase enrollments and tuition revenue, are launching women’s wrestling teams to attract female students.
Women’s wrestling got a boost with the inclusion of the sport in the 2004 olympics, but today only five colleges in the United States field teams. Most of those teams are newly-formed, and three more will be starting up this fall.
Five thousand girls wrestled for high school teams in the US in 2006-07, and one college’s coach says her team brings in “20 to 25 extra students who normally wouldn’t have looked at Jamestown College” each year.
The Secular Student Alliance has announced its annual awards for the best atheist clubs at North American colleges and universities. The awards are granted in the categories Best Service Project, Best Media Appearance, Best New Affiliate, Best Website, and Best Overall Affiliate, and come with cash prizes of $300 to $500.
This year’s honorees include the Atheists, Agnostics, and Freethinkers of the University of Illinois, who conducted a joint relief-work trip to New Orleans with members of that college’s Campus Crusade for Christ.
A new analysis of Barack Obama and John McCain’s campaign stops shows that Obama has made more than two dozen campaign stops in college towns since the beginning of February. John McCain? Just one.
The report tracked the candidates’ visits to eleven different kinds of communities, but did not measure campus visits specifically. It did not analyze Hillary Clinton’s campaign schedule.
In the last couple of weeks we’ve linked to three articles from WireTap magazine — a discussion of student organizing around sustainable food practices on campus, an overview of today’s student anti-nuclear organizing, and yesterday an interview with youth vote expert Michael Connery. Each of our three posts were quick heads-ups, but the articles we linked to were strong, smart, and detailed.
WireTap describes itself as a “news and culture magazine by and for young people interested in social change, and a place to “hear from young activists as they articulate their vision and describe their work that turns individual hopes into collective, political possibilities.”
They’re a great resource, and a great read. We’ve just added them to our blogroll.
studentactivism.net 
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