So the Activist Resource Center secretly rocks. At a training/meeting/retreat in DC through ARC, we listened to a speech by Angus(?) Johnson, a professor of student activism at CUNY. Apparently he’s really cool – at least his speech was.
He had this to say, and I found it really insightful: “When I tell people that I’m a researcher into student movements,” he said, “unfailingly the first question that comes out of their mouths is this: Why is there such a lack student activism today? Well, activism is all around you, but you just don’t recognize it. In 1967 there were very few womens resource centers, queer studies departments, or black student unions*. If you don’t think that there’s activism going on in your campus you’re not lookingin the right places”
That rings true, at Brandeis especially. The institutionalized (non-club) activism surrounds us – in various academic departments, in the ethics center, SSIS, farmers market, QRC, various organs of Hillel, admissions, and in other parts of “Official Brandeis”. I’m sure I’m missing some.
It’s nice to remember that sometimes.
* I might have misheard this last part. Maybe it was “black studies departments”