[COMM-ORG] query: are more students interested in community organizing?
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Fri Apr 17 11:28:43 CDT 2009
[ed: thanks to Bill for the contribution.]
From: Bill Spears <william.spears at wright.edu>
Ben,
I agree that there are ebbs and flows to interest in community
participation. It seems to me that this period of increased interest
provides an opportunity to explore how to maintain interest in building
community and increasing social capital. My experience is that the energy
of individuals does wane and sometimes they regain their energy at a later
point. On the other hand there is always a pool of individuals who become
engaged, for one reason or the other, for some period of time.
Through the 1970s to current times many people have sated their activist
tendencies by donating money to worthy activist causes that were run by
small lobbying groups usually based in Washington DC (see Diminishing
Democracy by Theda Skocpol). The recent Obama Campaign demonstrated that
there are ways of connecting with the "grassroots" using current technology
and moving away from the notions I grew up with. I learned that social
capital grows out of small local groups working together building leadership
by mentoring individuals up through taking responsibility at increasing
levels of organizations, community, local, state, regional, etc. I think
the question is can we use the knowledge and initiative of the newly
interested activists to rekindle the spirit of community organizing that
works in the current environment.
On 4/14/2009 10:18 AM, Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
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> [ed: thanks to Ben for the contribution.]
>
> From: benshepard at mindspring.com
>
>
> Well, I love to see it.
> But it also ebbs and flows.
> When I was in grad school,
> our community org group was
> the smallest concentration.
> But I have seen organizing
> become a hot fad with AIDS
> activism and then fade,
> with post-Seattle organizing,
> and then fade, before the
> War and the Republican
> convention 2003 and 4
> and then fade, and now.
> It ebbs and flows. I think
> the challenge for us, is to
> help people learn to stick
> with it, even during sticky
> points or set backs, such as
> 9/11 or Bush's re election,
> etc when organizing stops feeling
> as sexy.
>
>
> On 4/12/2009 9:18 AM, Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
>
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>> [ed: thanks to Marybeth and Richard for their responses and Peter for
>> the followup
>>
>> From: Marybeth McNamara <marybethmcnamara at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> Mr. Dreier,
>> I'm not sure if the Times is focusing on ONLY undergrads, but I am a
>> graduate student at the UConn School of Social Work and my concentration
>> is Community Organizing.
>> The University offers MSW students 5 concentrations for students to
>> choose from -Casework, Groupwork, Policy Practice, Adminstration and
>> Community Organization.
>>
>> The Community Organization concentration has the highest number of
>> students out of the 5 options.
>> I am not sure if this is always as it has been or a new phenomenon.
>> Maybe someone on the faculty/staff there could shed light on this topic?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Marybeth McNamara
>>
>> ****************************
>>
>> From: Richard Wood <rlwood at unm.edu>
>>
>>
>> Great piece posted here by Peter Dreier. After years of studying and
>> writing about community organizing, I am finally teaching a full course
>> for undergrads on that topic, subtitled "theory and practice". I
>> certainly detect a new tone and tenor among my remarkably diverse
>> students (diverse ethnically/racially, socio-economically, politically,
>> and religiously) at a public university in a poor state, which Peter
>> captures well here.
>>
>> For that course, would value seeing syllabi from similar courses others
>> have taught (and related materials: readings, assignments, practicums,
>> etc.).
>> Rich Wood, University of New Mexico, author of _Faith in Action:
>> Religion, Race, and Democratic Organizing in America (University of
>> Chicago Press, 2002)
>>
>> *****************************
>>
>> From:
>> "Peter Dreier" <dreier at oxy.edu>
>> Date:
>> Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:46:26 -0700
>> To:
>> "Peter Dreier" <dreier at oxy.edu>
>>
>> Friends and Colleagues:
>>
>> I usually have about 20 students in the Community Organizing course I
>> teach each year at Occidental College. So far, 42 students have
>> registered for next fall's class. I haven't all of a sudden become a
>> more popular professor. There's clearly something happening on American
>> campuses and in the broader culture that's tapping the pent up idealism
>> of today's students. An important element of that new mood on campus is
>> Barack Obama, but this phenomenon is bigger than one person. That's the
>> subject of my latest blog, "A New Wave of Organizers for the Obama Era,"
>> for the Talking Points Memo (TPM) Cafe, linked here:
>> http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/peter_dreier/2009/04/a-new-wave-of-community-organi.php.
>> (I've also pasted the essay below)
>>
>> That's also what reporter Sara Rimer learned when she interviewed
>> college students (including some of mine) and some professors
>> (including me) for her article in this Sunday's New York Times,
>> "Community Organizing Never Looked So Good."
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/fashion/12organizer.html?ref=style
>> A New Wave of Community Organizers for the Obama Era
>> April 10, 2009, 10:40PM
>>
>> I usually have about 20 students in the Community Organizing course I
>> teach each year at Occidental College in Los Angeles. So far, 42
>> students have registered for next fall's class.
>>
>> I haven't all of a sudden become a more popular professor. There's
>> clearly something happening on American campuses and in the broader
>> culture that's tapping the pent up idealism of today's students. An
>> important element of that new mood on campus is Barack Obama.
>>
>> More and more college students want careers where they can help make
>> society more humane, fair, and environmentally sustainable. They want to
>> put their skills, their idealism, and their energy to work promoting
>> social justice. My colleagues around the country tell me that the same
>> thing is happening on their campuses. A growing number of students who
>> are asking faculty and staff about internships, summer jobs, and careers
>> working with non-profit, advocacy, and grassroots organizing groups. Why
>> wait on tables when you could be changing the world?
>>
>> That's what reporter Sara Rimer learned when she interviewed college
>> students (including some of mine) for her article in this Sunday's New
>> York Times, "Community Organizing Never Looked So Good."
>>
>> Given that title, and the fact that appears in the Fashion & Style
>> section, you might think that Rimer asked students what they were
>> wearing to the next protest demonstration. But, in fact, hers is a
>> serious piece of reporting about what today's student activists want to
>> do when they graduate. Many of them want to become community organizers,
>> inspired by our new president.
>>
>> Fortunately, there are many more opportunities today to work for social
>> change than there were when I was in college in the 1960s or even when
>> Obama was in college (at Occidental and Columbia) in the 1980s. The
>> number of nonprofit organizations engaged in the struggle for justice -
>> community groups, unions, environmental and consumer groups, public
>> health and food justice groups, civil rights organizations, women's and
>> gay rights groups, fair trade and anti-sweatshop groups, groups
>> advocating for children, for the disabled, for the elderly, and for
>> immigrants -- has mushroomed dramatically. In addition to the thousands
>> of issue-oriented advocacy groups, there are many publications, think
>> tanks, and, of course, websites that promote progressive causes, most of
>> which didn't exist even 20 years ago.
>>
>> As Rimer discovered, community organizing groups and networks like
>> ACORN, PICO, DART, the Center for Community Change, the Industrial Areas
>> Foundation, National People's Action, U.S. Action, Gamaliel Foundation
>> (whose Chicago affiliate hired Obama after college) and others are
>> getting more applicants from college students and recent graduates. Many
>> of them already have some organizing experience through college
>> internships, summer jobs, or volunteering for a political campaign like
>> Obama's presidential crusade.
>>
>> Perhaps because so many of them get practical experience while still in
>> college, working with off-campus groups, today's student activists are
>> much more pragmatic, savvy, and patient than their counterparts in the
>> 1960s. They are skeptical but not cynical. They are not paralyzed by old
>> ideological battles or identity politics. They respect differences of
>> opinion, including religious beliefs, as well as the right to dissent.
>> They understand that they can disagree with their government and still
>> love their country and its ideals. They want major changes in our
>> institutions and policies, but they know that people need to win
>> stepping-stone reforms before they can envision a different kind of world.
>>
>> For sure, student interest in political activism and community
>> organizing was going on long before the Obama campaign. In the 1990s,
>> students mobilized against sweatshops and for "fair trade" consumer
>> products, in support of "living wages" for university employees, and
>> around global warming and "greening" America's college campuses. The
>> AFL-CIO began the Organizing Institute, a summer internship program for
>> college students who wanted to learn about being a union organizer.
>> After years of watching the conservative movement spend millions of
>> dollars to recruit and training activists on campuses, liberal groups
>> like the Center for American Progress, Wellstone Action, Democracy
>> Matters, the Student Environmental Action Coalition and others began to
>> focus more attention on college students. Over the past decade, a
>> growing number of colleges and universities embraced the idea of
>> "service learning," linking classrooms and the community.
>>
>> But there is no doubt that Obama's campaign and his victory, lit a
>> spark, accelerating student interest in politics in general and
>> grassroots organizing in particular. Millions of young people, including
>> college students and recent graduates, got involved in the Obama
>> campaign. Thousands learned organizing skills at Camp Obama training
>> sessions. The efforts of young people - as well as the youth vote - made
>> a big difference in his triumph last November. Many of the students who
>> volunteered in the campaign got a taste of organizing and now want to
>> pursue it as a career.
>>
>> In many ways, Obama has given community organizing a new cache. He has
>> described the three years he spent after college as a community
>> organizer in Chicago after college as "the best education I ever had."
>>
>> Obama has provided enormous visibility and credibility to organizing as
>> a career and profession. Obama's campaign stump speeches typically
>> included references to America's organizing tradition. "Nothing in this
>> country worthwhile has ever happened except when somebody somewhere was
>> willing to hope," Obama explained. "That is how workers won the right to
>> organize against violence and intimidation. That's how women won the
>> right to vote. That's how young people traveled south to march and to
>> sit in and to be beaten, and some went to jail and some died for
>> freedom's cause." Change comes about, Obama said, by "imagining, and
>> then fighting for, and then working for, what did not seem possible
>> before." His campaign slogan - "Yes, We Can" - was borrowed from Cesar
>> Chavez and the United Farmworkers movement
>>
>> Credit must go, too, to Sarah Palin, who attacked Obama's community
>> organizing experience during her Republican National Convention speech
>> in St. Paul last August, and then, along with John McCain, went on the
>> warpath against ACORN, one of the nation's largest and most effective
>> community organizing groups. The GOP assault triggered a huge backlash
>> not only among community organizers all over the country (who were happy
>> for the free publicity) but also among newspaper columnists, editorial
>> writers, readers who wrote letters to the editor, and bloggers. In the
>> aftermath of that attack, more newspapers and magazines wrote stories
>> about community organizing describing and praising the activists who
>> improve communities by bringing people together and giving people the
>> confidence and leadership skills to promote change - than had been
>> written in the previous decade.
>>
>> Despite our serious economic crisis, the country's mood has changed for
>> the better. Americans are worried about their jobs and their families,
>> but they still give the new president high marks for moving quickly to
>> address our problems. This is important, because significant
>> improvements only occur when people believe that things should be
>> changed and that they can be changed. Obama has restored a sense of
>> possibility and hope to American politics.
>>
>> Even so, if Obama has any chance to be a transformational President, it
>> will require a powerful progressive movement that aligns itself with,
>> but isn't controlled by, the young president and progressive forces in
>> Congress. There is plenty of evidence that Americans want a more
>> activist government to address the problems of economic insecurity,
>> health care, the environment, and U.S. military intervention in Iraq and
>> elsewhere. To win universal health care, labor law reform, or
>> legislation to reduce global warming - and to stimulate the troubled
>> economy to promote shared prosperity and green jobs, and rescue people
>> from foreclosures -- Obama will confront fierce resistance from powerful
>> forces in the business community and their friends in Congress.
>>
>> The Millennial generation - Americans now under 30 - voted
>> overwhelmingly for Obama. They are also ready to follow Obama's lead
>> and join the growing ranks of progressive activists.
>>
>> They also know, however, that grassroots organizing is only one way to
>> bring about change. Increasingly, for example, students who go to law
>> school want to use their legal talents to right wrongs rather than
>> represent banks, corporations, and developers. Fortunately, there are a
>> growing number of public interest law firms around the country that link
>> lawyers to social movements concerned about the environment, housing,
>> consumer protection, immigrant rights, and other issues.
>>
>> Likewise, students interested in medicine and health care can take many
>> paths to help change our failing health care system. A growing number of
>> students pursuing careers in public health, where they can combine their
>> concerns about the environment, medicine, social justice, and creating
>> livable communities. Or they can go to medical, nursing, or nutrition
>> school and use their skills by working in community clinics that serve
>> low-income people and agitate for change with such groups as Physicians
>> for a National Health Program and Physicians for Social Responsibility.
>>
>> Whatever profession they pursue - architect, city planner, teacher,
>> biologist, engineer, nutritionist, accountant, aide to an elected
>> official, child care provider, lawyer, or physician, among them - they
>> can use their talents to help move society in a more progressive
>> direction or to protect and defend the status quo. They understand that
>> it isn't simply a matter of having skills. It's a question of what
>> values those skills will be used to promote -- and what kinds of
>> organizations they work for.
>>
>> Obama has already helped change the nation's mood - and helped to
>> inspire a new generation of organizers and activists. More and more
>> young people want to pursue a career with a conscience.
>>
>> But will the nonprofit groups that help advocate and organize for change
>> have the resources to employ them? Many environmental, community, and
>> other groups that do this work are facing difficult times, since they
>> depend on members' dues, foundation grants, bake sales and other
>> fundraisers to keep their organizations afloat. And will today's young
>> people be able to pursue their ideals if they can't afford to stay in
>> college, or if they are saddled with college loans that they can't
>> afford to pay back on an activist's salary?
>>
>> Here's another way that Obama, and Congress, can help. They have already
>> expanded the federal budget for AmeriCorps, the nation's major community
>> service program. But what's needed is a major commitment to providing
>> students in two- and four-year colleges with financial assistance -
>> allowing them graduate debt-free -- if they pursue careers in the many
>> forms of public and community service. This means encouraging doctors
>> and nurses to work in clinics serving the poor, architects and planners
>> who work for nonprofit groups building mixed-income housing, engineers
>> and technicians who help design and install "green" technologies in our
>> homes and workplaces, and community organizers who help people help
>> themselves, through their faith-based institutions, neighborhoods, and
>> schools, in the great American tradition of voluntarism.
>>
>> A character in George Bernard Shaw's play, Back to Methusaleh, says,
>> "You see things and you say, 'why?' But I dream things that never were,
>> and I say, "why not?'"
>>
>> That's the essence of an activist -- someone who doesn't just criticize
>> awful conditions, but tries to change them, not on his or her own, but
>> with others. We endured eight years of White House contempt for the
>> practical idealism that makes change possible. Obama has restored
>> Americans' faith in themselves. You can find that new mood on almost
>> every college campus today. When a skeptic asks me if the students in
>> my communityorganizing class have what it takes to change the world, I'm
>> proud to say: Yes, They Can.
>>
>> Peter Dreier is professor of politics and chair of the Urban &
>> Environmental Policy program at Occidental College.
>>
>>
>> _____________________________________
>> Peter Dreier
>> Dr. E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics
>> Chair, Urban & Environmental Policy Program
>> Occidental College
>> 1600 Campus Road
>> Los Angeles, CA 90041
>> Phone: (323) 259-2913
>> FAX: (323) 259-2734
>> Website: http://employees.oxy.edu/dreier
>>
>> "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great
>> moral crises maintain their neutrality" - Dante
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4/6/2009 10:03 AM, Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
>>
>>
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>>> [ed: please feel welcomed to copy COMM-ORG with replies to Peter's query.]
>>>
>>> From: "Peter Dreier" <dreier at oxy.edu>
>>>
>>>
>>> Colleagues:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I have a question for those of you who teach undergraduate courses in
>>> Community Organizing: Is interest in your classes – or in community
>>> organizing more generally – increasing among students on your campuses?
>>> I hope you will respond quickly to this question. Here’s why:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> A New York Times reporter is writing a story about this phenomenon. Her
>>> thesis -- which I agree with (and even wrote a few articles about last
>>> year (http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=1215;
>>> http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/dreier) -- is that the Obama
>>> campaign, and his presidency, has not only heightened awareness of
>>> community organizing as a job/career/vocation, but accelerated the trend
>>> of student activists looking for work as organizers upon graduation.
>>> This was happening BEFORE the Obama campaign (ie the campus
>>> anti-sweatshop and campus living wage movements began in the late
>>> 1990s), but I think his campaign (which put heavy emphasis on recruiting
>>> young people and training volunteers as organizers,) accelerated it.
>>> Plus, any progressive movement requires a sense of hope and possibility,
>>> and I think Obama’s campaign and election provided some of that. Groups
>>> like Wellstone Action, Campus Progress (an offshoot of the Center for
>>> American Progress), United Students Against Sweatshops, the AFL-CIO’s
>>> Organizing Institute, and other groups that recruited and trained
>>> students also contributed to this.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I teach a Community Organizing course every fall, which includes an
>>> internship with a community organizing group, a labor union, an
>>> environmental group, or another group that does organizing work. I
>>> usually have 20-25 students. Already, 42 students have registered for my
>>> course for next fall. I don’t think this is because I’ve all-of-a-sudden
>>> become a more popular professor. I think it has to do with the political
>>> climate, Obama, the growing visibility of organizing (not only because
>>> of Obama, but also because of the Palin/McCain attacks on organizers
>>> that triggered a huge backlash).
>>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/palin-attacks-on-communit_b_129568.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> My friends who work for unions, ACORN, PICO, IAF, and other organizing
>>> groups tell me that they are getting more and more applicants for jobs
>>> and internships. I think this is all part of the same phenomenon.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Are you seeing the same trend on your campus? Please let us all know. I
>>> can relay that to the NY Times reporter, who is doing the story for next
>>> week, so please respond ASAP.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter
>>>
>>> ____________________
>>>
>>> Peter Dreier
>>>
>>> E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics
>>>
>>> Director, Urban & Environmental Policy Program
>>>
>>> Occidental College
>>>
>>> Los Angeles, CA 90041
>>>
>>> Phone: (323) 259-2913
>>>
>>> Email: dreier at oxy.edu
>>>
>>> Website: http://employees.oxy.edu/dreier
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great
>>> moral crises maintain their neutrality" - Dante
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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