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More Student Interaction Needed
By J.
Jun 27th 2007
at 12:14 pm EDT
While the Conference overall was great, there is definitely a need for greater student-to-student interaction. We heard a lot about how "this is all about you" then were talked at (for the most part) for the majority of the day. In a conference whose stated goal is to bring students together, there should've been a vehicle outside the buffet line for students to sit down and hash out progressive ideas and where they disagree. For example, perhaps in the breakout sessions, after the initial panel, each panelist should have led/moderated a discussion between 10 student attendees in which the students themselves got to exchange ideas with each other.
I'm sitting at the media credential table at the Campus Progress annual student conference. Over 1,000 attendees, have heard speeches from Sen. Russ Feingold, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Keith Ellison and been to multiple breakout sessions. Highlights include our bosses David Halperin and John Podesta's rousing calls to arms, Feingold's strong statement in favor of redeployment from Iraq, Pelosi's plea that our generation take up combatting global climate change as a primary issue, and Ellison's admonition that the college students in the audience not forget their peers in community colleges and trade schools.
The best panel discussion thus far has been "Breaking Ballot Barriers." OK, you caught me, it happens to be the one I organized. But it did rock. We heard from two student activists: Henry Beck, a city councilman in Waterville, ME, where he attends Colby College, who successfully led a fight against a proposal in the Maine legislature to disenfranchise out of state college students and Andres Idarraga, a former felon in who attends Brown University and worked on the successful campaign to restore the right to vote to former felons in Rhode Island, as well as three nationally known experts on electoral reform.
Dana moderated a panel on feminism that was also extremely entertaining and informative. Her panel focused on how women can improve their representation in politics, and how feminism can be embedded in the larger progressive economic and cultural agenda. It was good to see that there were some very engaged men in the audience.
Soon we'll get to hear from some Iraq veterans on how their experience has shaped their anti-war views. WOO!
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