Around the world, 2011 was characterized by young people’s taking charge and making their mark as activists. From the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, young people refused to be ignored; Time magazine even named “the protester” person of the year.
At Ohio University, impassioned students continue to be dedicated to their own forms of activism.
The group Bobcats for a Conflict-free Campus is fighting relentlessly to end OU’s use of conflict minerals; political disputes such as Senate Bill 5 have polarized the student body; and the Occupy movement made its way to Athens in the form of Occupy OU.
Although the number of students dedicating their time and energy as modern college activists might be small, their commitment is anything but.
Junior Ellie Hamrick first demonstrated activist tendencies in third grade, when she wrote and performed an angry poem about the unrealistic ideals Barbie promotes for women.
Her activism blossomed in high school when she read an article about child soldiers in Uganda, and that interest in human rights led her to start the Bobcats for a Conflict-free Campus campaign.
“I thought it would be just a question of talking to the right administrator and it would be done in like a month,” Hamrick said. “But I didn’t expect it to grow into a big movement like this or to grow into a student organization.”
But it did grow and has become a vocal group on campus, working to get the university’s administration to make a statement indicating that there is a relationship between minerals and the war in the Congo. Furthermore, the group wants the university to pledge against purchasing electronics made with conflict minerals.
Spearheading the fight against conflict minerals and working as a human-rights activist is Hamrick’s largest commitment.
“I put so much more time into it than any of my classes,” she said. “It’s like having a job basically.”
The willingness to dedicate a great deal of time to a given cause is an essential aspect to becoming an activist, and with so much vying for students’ attention, that trait is sometimes hard to find.
Junior Jacob Chaffin spent most of his life apathetic toward politics. He said he thought political issues would never affect him, so there was no point in getting involved. But as an education major with a father who is a teacher, the possible implications of Senate Bill 5 showed him how political debates could directly affect him.
“It completely proved my theory wrong that I shouldn’t care,” Chaffin said. “I’ve really done a 180 in that I now believe that everything is going to affect me in political issues and I should care about all of them.”
Chaffin began campaigning actively against Senate Bill 5, took an internship with We Are Ohio, and started attending environmental conferences after deciding he could no longer stand on the sidelines.
“I think we’re getting to a point where we’re going to see a lot more (students) get involved,” he said.” I think students are becoming aware and people are feeling more and more empowered.”
Last March, OU students took to the streets of Athens during a protest sponsored by the Defend Education, Ohio! coalition. On Friday, March 4, about 250 people demonstrated their stand against university budget cuts and SB 5 by marching through campus and chanting catch phrases including “No ifs, no buts, no education cuts.” This protest came just two days after Defend Education, Ohio! sponsored a five-hourlong teach-in.
This fall’s Occupy OU protest took on a similar, traditional style of activism by openly protesting on the former site of The Oasis. Tyler Barton, a senior who organized Occupy OU and last spring’s protest, said a central mission was to get the campus to pay attention to the cause.
“What I did think could happen was that we could make the point that political conversation is something that we should be talking about openly and publicly,” Barton said.
Although OU’s committed activists say the number of students who dedicate their time to enacting change is growing, the current student body has not rallied around one central cause as it has in the past.
In 2007, for example, 78 percent of students voted “no confidence” in the Student Senate election, showing their disdain for the group’s leadership.
Will Klatt, who helped organize the “no confidence” vote, ran for Student Senate president in 2008 on the platform that Student Senate should work to hold OU’s administration accountable for its actions and OU’s alcohol and marijuana policies should be reformed.
Although Klatt, who was endorsed by The Post at the time, gained a large amount of student support, he was ultimately defeated. However, his ability to rally the students of OU to work together to enact change was obvious.
Some examples of modern activism might go overlooked because of their untraditional nature. Activism can now mean raising awareness through email or phone campaigns and sharing information through social media.
“I think activism has changed, so maybe it’s less confrontational than it used to be or less public in some ways,” Hamrick said. “But I see people posting stuff to Facebook or on Twitter all the time, so I think activism is still around. It’s just maybe different than it used to be.”
bm257008@ohiou.edu
