In order to stir students to vote next Tuesday, the Dartmouth Progressives along with Amnesty International and the Dartmouth Civil Liberties Union sponsored a week full of protests and displays of posters around campus
The week included a "sign wearing day" where activists wore signs about key issues and a speech on climate change by journalist Andrew Revkin. The five days of activism will culminate today with a "teach-in" at Collis Common Ground in which professors will speak to students about a variety of current issues.
Alex DiBranco '09, one of the events organizers and the president of the DCLU, said that she has always wanted to see a large activist group-oriented movement at Dartmouth. One goal of this week-long experience was to reveal the many faces of activism at the College, she said.
"There are lots of groups who have been doing some great individual projects so I think that we wanted to do something for everybody," DiBranco said. "We wanted to point out that these are all major problems -- a holistic state of affairs approach."
DiBranco said that the informal execution the protests and posters was deemed a more effective tactic in reaching a wide range of students.
This is important because while there are probably students who are passionate about certain issues, they may not know about all the opportunities to get involved without being part of the established activist community, she said.
"You hear a lot about the Dartmouth bubble," DiBranco said. "I've heard the campus characterized as liberal apathetic, but I know that there are tons of people doing dedicated work. I also think there are people at Dartmouth who do care about things and would care about things if they knew more about it."
Kate Breeding '08, secretary of the Dartmouth Progressives, said that she too saw the protests as a way to address key issues such as the Iraq War, civil rights, torture, anti-trust and media consolidation, genocide, poverty, gender-motivated violence and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.
Breeding said that while these protests were not aimed at endorsing certain candidates in the upcoming elections, but their timing did coincide nicely with Election Day, when many of these issues are at the forefront of many people's minds.
The protests also aimed at getting people involved and excited about ways they can become a part of the activist community at Dartmouth.
"Our goal with the protest is to shake the community from this slump of apathy that we seem to be in right now," Breeding said. "The protest's slogan is 'Educate, Agitate, Activate' because it is against the current state of affairs."
Dan Thele '10, who is with the DCLU and the Progressives, said that activism can be hard to find as a newcomer to the College.
"I guess there are definitely people here that are interested in what's going on and want to make a difference, but my first experience with that is that it was kind of quiet and you had to look to find the activism," Thele said.
Thele said he hopes that with the week of protests, students will not have to look so hard to find an issue that hits home with them.
"The more stuff you do, the more likely it is that someone will see it," he said. "Just by having a wide range of issues, we hope to grab the attention of as many people as possible."
The week's events were also sponsored by the Gay Straight Alliance, the International Humanitarian Foundation, Aids Workcrew, Face Aids and La Alianza Latina.
