BY ROGER SMITH  
 One week ago, Martha Paz and I had the fortune of attending a national retreat for student leaders. We did not go all the way to Philadelphia for ourselves, but rather hoped to bring back information of benefit to the entire Wesleyan community. Two points of interest are the Pax Wesleiana under which we currently live, and the potential need for, and problems with, networking between student groups on campus.

 The first thing that struck me at the conference is that we are living in a time of freedom and opportunity at Wesleyan, but don’t even realize it. I’m worried that student groups will not take advantage of a lenient, even supportive, administration and time of economic stability to reform the University (e.g. investment code, faculty of color) and to make progress in achieving broader goals (e.g. local environment). Only when crisis diverts us from working on our causes will we realize what an opportunity we had back in the late nineties.

 What sort of crisis can do that? Wesleyan University currently has no organized right-wing. Here there are no counter-demonstrations, no student movements to end affirmative action, and no attempts to get rid of the college body tax in order to defend groups with radical agendas, like multiculturalism or gay rights. Additionally, our administration is relatively liberal. At one school the administration infiltrated student groups, at another it banned leafleting inside a student union on behalf of McDonalds, and at a third school, student groups are restricted so much that they can’t rent university space and can’t even hold a bake sale without a huge deposit. Admittedly, some of these problems are not the problems of a small, private, liberal arts school. Unlike at other schools, President Bennet does not have to accept corporate subsidies to keep the school afloat, and is not under pressure to cut liberal arts in favor of the more marketable sciences. Clearly, we are living in a time of institutional freedom, but have to wonder how long it will last, and if we are truly taking advantage of it. The current danger is that without any real opposition on campus, we become complacent. Now’s the time to get things institutionalized on campus — both reform of Wesleyan itself, and of the way student groups tend not to support each other and tend not to keep records of their experience and knowledge for future student groups. Another issue of importance at the retreat concerned coalition-building among the left. It should be noted that the Center for Campus Organizing (www.cco.org) organized the retreat, and the Student Environmental Action Coalition (www.seac.org) hosted it. The general consensus at the conference was that if groups dedicated to equality, freedom, anti-oppression, and other tenets of progressive ideology could work together, we could reach a far broader base of people and would have a better chance of achieving our goals. This seems to be the consensus of Wesleyan student groups as well, judging by WESLEAD in 1997 and 1998, Black History Month Convocation in 1998, and the recent leadership and diversity workshop facilitated by Mark Gerzon. The question is why most student groups still work alone. Is it a fear that they will have to dilute their message, cannot accept aspects of others’ ideologies, or just do not feel they have time?  At Wesleyan, one major problem I’ve noticed seems to be the lack of inter-group communication. If the contact people, meeting times, and current campaigns of an organization are not readily available, working together becomes a burden, and when done is often superficial. The current “Hey, come to our rally,” is a bit better than “Hey, read about it in The Argus,” but is light-years away from “Hey, can we work together on this issue, could you send a member or two to our meeting?” Admittedly, it takes some flexibility and creativity to figure out how groups can benefit themselves by working together, but a bit of time and initiative can (and has) overcome these obstacles. What makes no sense at all is when groups devoted to similar issues in central Connecticut do not communicate with each other, or do not even know others exist. For example, while E3 does work closely with environmental groups in Connecticut, it just found out that the Nature Conservancy has a chapter located practically on-campus, and E3 has no idea what the chapter does. The lack of a permanent place to keep track of contact information ensures the repetition of incidents like that. Additionally, while the Office of Community Services probably has a pretty good idea of who is active around Middletown, this information doesn’t seem to get to campus activists.

 The final question is where to start. The Center for Campus Organizing warns outside groups against forcing coalitions that do not make sense. Working with the WSA, WESUNITY has set up an email listserve and a news web site (www.wesleyan.edu/wesunity) for student groups in an effort to make information available. Ultimately, it is up to student groups to make use of the available resources and to determine whether or not forming alliances is in their best interest.

 Want to talk more about these issues? Call x4993 or email me at rsmith02@wesleyan.edu.
 

Smith is a member of the class of 2001 and the founder of WESUNITY.