Image from Wikimedia Commons
This past Monday I sat in on a meeting of the Connecticut College Democrats, the only active political organization on campus. I had been curious about the club for a while: are the members involved in local politics? What do they talk about at meetings? I ended up learning more than I expected. The meeting shed some light on the political activity at Conn, and made me wonder about our club culture in general.
The club meets in the Alice Johnson room in Cro every Monday at ten and welcomes visitors. Even after I was outed as a conservative by a club member who knows me personally, they continued to be perfectly friendly and mentioned how they actually enjoy having students with opposing opinions come to the meetings to discuss issues. Just recently, they rallied students to send over two hundred letters to Connecticut senators about the Planned Parenthood bill. They plan to attend the upcoming College Democrats of Connecticut conference and to involve themselves with Spectrum’s effort to raise awareness about equal pay for women. They even have seats on the Democratic town committee.
Their agenda and talk of upcoming events were mixed with lively chat about current issues at Conn and in the world. I’ll admit, when going into the meeting I was prepared to hear nothing but extreme leftists complaining about Glenn Beck or the Tea Party with some blathering about Jon Stewart thrown in. However, all the members were level-headed and very well informed. They talked intelligently about a range of issues that mattered rather than just ranting about the social problems so many young “politically-minded” people focus on.
When the meeting was over they looked to me. They asked what I was writing about and wondered if I needed any more information. I told them it was just a general article about the club, and that I was thinking about questioning a lack of a conservative version. They told me a Republican club existed just one year ago, and technically still does, but it’s entirely inactive. The Dems aren’t just interested in the disappearance of their right wing counterpart—they are upset about it.
And why wouldn’t they be? “The best thing we can do is get the campus talking about politics,” said vice president Alicia Rea ’12. This is a goal all college political clubs should share. But without a foil, an organization with opposing values, a political club’s effect on campus is minimized.
Where are the CC Reps? The Conn-servatives? The RepubliConns? Not only are these names too good to waste, but a Republican organization would provide a home for campus conservatives (I know you’re out there), and maybe even politically electrify Conn.
Debates between the two groups could be held, opposing columns could be written for the Voice and the extremely polarized portrayals of the two parties, created by popular media, could be dispelled. This campus could use a political spark. The Planned Parenthood initiative was the first and only time I heard anyone talking about real issues in the dining hall. We all know Conn can feel like a bubble. It’s a bubble that I love, but it is an insular, self-contained world nonetheless. More political activity could better connect us to the outside world, and maybe even get some big-name politicians to speak on campus.
When I imagined what a CC Dems meeting would look like, I saw a fairly large crowd crammed along a table excitedly shouting about the issues of today. Rather, it was just seven people sitting in the center of the Alice Johnson room. A few times throughout the meeting, it seemed like a few more people were filtering in, but no. It was just two guys looking for the outdoors club and a girl trying to find her lost cell phone. I don’t mean to belittle the club because of its size, but I do mean to belittle the willingness of students to commit. I received a forwarded email from the club letting me know the meeting time and place. This allowed me to take a look at their mailing list, which included over fifty students. Seven were at the meeting, and that’s apparently been the norm.
There is only one active political club on campus. It is CC Democrats and it only has seven to ten members. You might say that the issue-oriented clubs like COAST or Forest Justice involve politics, but these organizations are too narrow in scope to be called political. Though it makes me wonder why there aren’t more members of clubs like Spectrum, which is all about raising awareness for liberal social issues.
I know we have people on campus who like politics and keep up with current events. I know I can never find an issue of the New York Times in the late afternoon. I know that there are plenty of students who identify with the Democratic Party, and I know there must be some who identify with the GOP. So why does our school feel politically stagnant?
Are Conn students too intimidated by the chaotic political atmosphere to join a political club? Maybe they assume as I did, that a club based around a political party would attract extremists. Or maybe they just don’t have the time and think clubs which focus on more specific matters will be easier to handle. But even with the existence of these issue-oriented clubs, the lack of attendance at CC Dems along with the lack of existence of the College Republicans makes me worry. Just based on observation, the clubs that have the largest collective members must be the club sports and the culture/identity organizations. I think these groups are valid and important on campus, but I also think that some branching out should occur. When people join clubs, are they too focused on the social aspect rather than their intellectual interests? It’s hard to tell, but unfortunately I think the answer is yes. •
Conn republican typically utilize the best nickname there is: CCR. With CC Dems, we always had trouble getting in contact with CCR. The thought was maybe that hated us, but they were all very active students and barely had time meet once every few months.
I think CCDems will pick up and CCR may return next year with the loaming presidental elections