Thread: College students nowadays choose action over protest

College students nowadays choose action over protest
By JEANNIE KEVER Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 10, 2008, 10:39PM
24Comments 3Recommend 1 2

BILLY SMITH II CHRONICLE
Murray Myers, a student at the University of St. Thomas, sifts through recycled cans and bottles collected last week at the Houston school. Myers runs the campus recycling program and could have graduated in May, but he wants to find his replacement first.

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CHANGE IN TIMES

On campuses, blurry mimeographed fliers have given way to e-mail blasts and text messages. Students' focus, too, is more varied, reflecting the range of issues in today's global economy.

Hot topics
• Lower tuition

• Cleaner environment

• Immigrants' rights


Low interest
• Some issues — the war in Iraq, the mortgage crisis — have drawn relatively little attention, perhaps because students feel they can't make a difference.
The Kent State shootings and other iconic protests of the 1970s are so last century.

Student activists now are more likely to run recycling stations or deliver bottled water to day laborers.
"It's not really as much protesting as students taking charge," said Murray Myers, a senior at the University of St. Thomas who runs the campus recycling program. "I guess protest was pretty popular in the '60s. I see me and other students ... doing positive things, rather than protesting."

Activism isn't dead on the nation's college campuses; it's just different.

"They're everywhere in many, many ways," said Maria Jimenez, who was a student activist at the University of Houston during the 1970s and now advocates for immigrant and human rights.


Shifting interests, styles
For most students, college is primarily a ticket to the future, a place to gain the skills to make it in the adult world. Many juggle jobs and classes, leaving little time for saving the world.

"In my generation, maybe about 10 percent really care, but those who care are really passionate about it," said Imelda Padilla, 21, a senior at the University of California, Berkeley, who is spending the summer in Houston for an internship with the Service Employees International Union.

Some say activism is cyclical.

"We were an extremely active generation," Jimenez said. "Then there were several generations that were not active at all. ... It impresses me how important the work that young people are now doing is."

Students during the 1980s and '90s focused on careers and paychecks, "not so much public service," said William Munson, dean of students at the University of Houston. "Now there's an expectation among our students that they give something back."

Today's activists, however, aren't only about food drives and charity runs. Old-style guerrilla theater is still around, too.

Two student groups at UH — Students Against Sweatshops and Students for Fair Trade — regularly storm President Renu Khator's office. A small band of protesters has spent the past 18 months in a grove of trees on the UC Berkeley campus, hoping to save them from being cut down to make way for a sports facility.

"You walk to a football game, and you see them," said Padilla, a political science major on the California campus. " ... I wouldn't necessarily say I'm that kind of activist."

She is, instead, spending the summer on Houston's street corners, talking to day laborers about the minimum wage and other concerns.

"I want to change the world, but you have to do it one issue at a time," she said.


A place at the table
Other students work on topics closer to home.

"There's a lot more people going to college these days, and we have to ensure we're preserving accessibility for everyone," said Sam Dike, 21, president of the UH Student Government Association.

Dike served on a university committee considering tuition increases last spring and reluctantly agreed to support a 6 percent increase.

But he also is trying to revive the dormant Texas Student Association, a statewide group he hopes will lobby for student interests, such as tuition and financial aid.

"For far too long, we have not had a legitimate place at the table," said Dike.

Another group of students work on behalf of people halfway around the world, a trend Jimenez links to the increased ease of international travel.

"They will take off by plane to protest at the Republican convention or the World Social Forum in Brazil," she said.

Tiffany Le, 21, a creative writing student at UH, says her family's ties to Vietnam helped drive her support for fair-trade coffee, harvested by workers paid a living wage.

She grew up in the North Texas suburb of Plano but has traveled to Vietnam.

"I saw what it was like to live in that kind of poverty," she said. "In the '60s, (student issues) were domestic, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war or the civil rights movement. Now we're looking at globalization and our impact on the world."
UH Students for Fair Trade is aligned with a national group that advises campus affiliates. A similar group, United Students Against Sweatshops, works with students on 250 campuses to demand the schools sell only items produced in factories offering decent wages and working conditions.


Poverty, justice
Working conditions in a Chinese factory or Central American coffee plantation may seem far removed from a college campus in Texas.

Student activists don't see it that way.

"I think there is more and more the realization that any human problem, it is part of our human lives and we have a role to play," said Rogelio Garcia-Contreras, an assistant professor at the University of St. Thomas' Center for International Studies.

His students want to end poverty, ensure justice and provide food and shelter everywhere in the world.

But sometimes, their work is less dramatic.

At 24, Myers wants to fight global warming and urban sprawl. For now, he's the recycling czar at the University of St. Thomas.

Myers, an environmental studies and political science student, inherited the job when the previous coordinator graduated.

"There are a lot of other areas I'd rather be working on, but because this is my responsibility, it's what I've been doing," he said.

He could have graduated in May but put it off because there was no one to take over.

This fall, he has a new goal: "Finding my replacement."

jeannie.kever@chron.com

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(10)
wannabefrozen wrote:
what a joke!
The "activism" that these students are engaged in is simply "resume building" so that they can get into the better grad schools or get admitted to law or med schools. They are competing for the almighty Yankee Dollar and for survival, NOT working towards a better world.
You see, back in the sixties when students would protest in the streets etc, in those days America had plenty of factory jobs available for almost any American citizen to take. But we no longer have those jobs and nowadays everyone has to hustle and beat the race to the bottom. You see, we were sold out and betrayed by our so-called leaders and the mass media. THey sent our jobs overseas and then they imported cheap immigrant labor to do the rest of the easy to get jobs. So nowadays we Americans have to compete ruthlessly to live, all because of the economic treason of the elite and the media.
8/11/2008 1:14:59 AM
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(5)
PeskyP wrote:
I'm definitely in support of kids doing things that are positive, rather than engaging in often-violent and rather annoying protest marches and rallies that just make them look stupid. I mean, all those Che Guevara t-shirts don't make you deep or anything - they just make you look like an ignorant fool.
8/11/2008 2:11:05 AM
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(7)
crankywithakeyboard wrote:
Personally, I'd feel better if I saw actual moral values rather than "resume-padding" as so beautifully stated by wannabefrozen. Take a college class sometime and have your eyes opened to the amount of cheating going on. The term "student" has almost no meaning anymore.
8/11/2008 5:15:50 AM
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(2)
RightWingFossil wrote:
What is a state school doing supporting passing out water bottles to people who are very likely illegal aliens? And where is the student organization that is demanding our government enforce our laws by reporting those day laborers?
8/11/2008 6:58:25 AM
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(10)
andromeda713 wrote:
Actually, the activism I took part in when I was in college was against illiteracy in Asiatic countries and helping people in Darfur. It had zero to do with getting into a better grad school, it had to do with helping my fellow man.
8/11/2008 1:55:38 AM
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(3)
GiantLeapForMankind wrote:
End poverty in the world? Good luck on that one...

Just don't use my tax money on your crusade doomed for failure.

How do these kids not need jobs?
8/11/2008 10:59:01 AM
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(1)
anotherdayinhtown wrote:
I saw a group of protestors about a month ago bitchin' about the pay for sweatshop employees. Thankfully they were outside Starbucks where they could picket AND enjoy a tasy beverage.
8/11/2008 10:44:23 AM
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(0)
JBunny wrote:
Wow, I really hope "wannabefrozen" and "crankywithakeyboard" are not my age to be that cynical, then again, I wouldn't want to be that cynical at any age. Oh, and get off your soapbox about how we were sold out and how "student" no longer has any meaning, please. To wannabefrozen, why don't you do something like some people are doing, regardless of how mundane it might seem to some, instead of whining about how bad we have it. It's called taking an active role, you might learn you like it. And to all the people highlighted in the article, great job in taking an interest in the social issues around them.
8/11/2008 10:29:18 AM
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(7)
riceowl1999 wrote:
I like how each generation thinks the other generation isn't as active as they are. One person in article claimed that people in the 80's didn't care about anything about a paycheck and that only about 10% care now. Um, okay. What they fail to take into account is those protests in the 60's, what percentage of college students do they think participated in any protest or were anti-war protestors? I'd venture to guess it was a pretty small percentage. They see some of the bigger events and assume that most of the 60's was filled with protestors. I wasn't alive back then, but seriously doubt this is thecase. Mostly, a small number of college students are activists.
8/11/2008 9:00:27 AM
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5935525.html

I think that most students are liberal because they simply don’t know any better… they don’t have to bear the financial brunt of social programs and services that they often support. And they don’t understand the long term ramifications of their liberal positions/decisions.

Years ago, I taught a college course in “Biomedical Ethicsâ€