Liberal Students Strategize, Cheerlead at National Conference

WASHINGTON, July 15--Columbia, with its may fliers and protests, may seem to the casual observer like a nest of flaming liberals. But College Walk had nothing on a conference held in Washington last week, where 1,000 students from 275 schools gathered in the Wardman Park Marriott hotel to hear high-power speakers and gain skills for their own campaigns.

Organized by CampusProgress, the student arm of the Center for American Progress, the two-day event was part of the left-wing think tank's effort to kick start a new progressive movement at colleges and universities across the country. Since its inception in 2005, CampusProgress has funded and promoted student activist efforts and 45 liberal campus publications -- including Columbia's Ad Hoc.

"Conservatives have been doing this for a long time -- they've simply been better organized than us for decades," conference organizer Amanda Angelotti said in an interview, noting the support that key Republican figures received from conservative groups during their college years. "They've all gone through that movement, and it worked, it worked like a charm."

At the end of the month, Young America's Foundation -- CampusProgress's counterpart on the right -- will hold a week long conference in Washington, which will cost $375. The CampusProgress event was free. The conservative gathering, which last year drew 400 students, will be broadcast on C-SPAN and will feature such conservative luminaries as Newt Gingrich and David Horowitz.

As a 501c3 nonprofit organization, CampusProgress dances around explicitly partisan statements, favoring a pragmatic approach to policy and accommodating a broad range of strategies for change. Although launched by former Clinton Administration officials, CampusProgress' goal is unity, not ideological uniformity, explained CAP intern Keith Hernandez, CC '07 and Activities Board at Columbia president.

"Using the word Democrat or using the word liberal has been tainted," said Hernandez. "How do we get as many people connected as possible that believe in the same thing? It isn't against-the-Man-type stuff."

In order to reach different types of students, the conference offered diverse options: panels on poverty, immigration, and academic freedom shared the stage with activists like Adrienne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society. Brown urged the students to turn their campuses into "hotbeds of revolutionary, sexy action" and called America "the most aggressive and mean bully country in the entire world."

Representing Morningside Heights, Riverside Church Senior Minister James Forbes gave one of the conference's opening speeches, in which he preached against the abuses of the Bush administration. Rising to a crescendo, he urged the audience to its feet and performing a rap that he had composed as students clapped and chanted the chorus.

Afterward, Forbes reflected on the state of activism at Columbia. "The general direction of students is there, but I have not gotten clarity," he said. "Maybe the embers, if they are gathered together, will restore the power of the student activism of the 1960s."

Illinois Senator Barack Obama, CC '83, offered advice for altruistic young people in his eagerly anticipated keynote speech. Students greeted the senator with a standing ovation and by flashing camera phonesÑbut subsequent reviews were less than enthusiastic, especially in comparison with Bill Clinton's speech at the 2005 conference.

"I think we all had high expectations of him," said University of Illinois student Nora Anderson. "It just seemed like he was a little flat."

In between speeches and workshops, students in attendance -- some flown in by CampusProgress for the occasion, others taking a day off from internships in D.C. -- shared stories of their activism, from advocating for gender-neutral bathrooms and raising the bar age to more mainstream issues like abortion rights and green energy.

Hernandez noted that CampusProgress may not pour many resources into Columbia, which already possesses a strong progressive infrastructure in the form of camous groups like the College Democrats. Instead, CampusProgress will target its efforts in strategic areas such as Ohio, Texas, and California.

Students from places other than the East Coast especially seemed to draw strength from being around so many like-minded young people. Kameelah Resheed, who recently graduated from Pomona College in California, pushed for an ethnic studies class requirement at her school.

"I felt like I had to go at all these issues on my own," Resheed said.