AURORA - Sarah Alexander, a junior at Wells College, is not content to just spend her college career immersed in classrooms, textbooks and research papers.
As an activist, Alexander embraces the issues of fair trade, hunger, poverty, the environment and animal rights.
"I think I'm lucky enough that I can afford to give my time and dedicate myself to these causes," Alexander said.
Wells College officials apparently believe many students share Alexander's dedication. On Friday, the campus held its fourth annual Activism in the Academy Symposium, an all-day affair that offered students and the community a forum to "promote activism, encourage critical thinking and find links between the academy and the world at large," according to the college's literature on the event.
Programs were held on a variety of topics, including using the Internet for activism, animal rights, purchasing products responsibly, women's health care and the anti-nuclear movement.
"One of our goals at Wells is to get students involved in social action," explained Laura McClusky, an assistant professor of sociology. "We have a lot of emphasis in the curriculum on social justice."
Keynote speaker was Marjorie Agosin, a poet and educator at Wellesley College near Boston. Much of Agosin's speech detailed her experiences in Chile, her native country that she left at 16 to escape the 1973 military coup that overthrew the Socialist government of Salvador Allende.
Agosin spoke of the reign of Augusto Pinochet, a dictator, during which many were abducted, tortured and murdered.
"People disappeared in the middle of the night, were abducted, were sent to concentration camps," she said. "Still, there were people who resisted."
Agosin said poets became a backbone of the resistance, smuggling their words out of the country however they could.
"Words are the most important ways to witness the world," she said. "Poets wrote in exile. Poets wrote in prison. Poets wrote on cigarettes, inside the paper, and sent them away. Poets wrote on the bark of trees outside the prison windows. Women embroidered their stories on scraps of cloth."
Agosin told the audience that activism is a choice that can leave a lasting reminder of injustice and change the future.
"It is much easier to evade responsibility," she said. "What an activist must say is, 'Much has happened here and we are going to give testimony.'"
"I think I'm lucky enough that I can afford to give my time and dedicate myself to these causes," Alexander said.
Wells College officials apparently believe many students share Alexander's dedication. On Friday, the campus held its fourth annual Activism in the Academy Symposium, an all-day affair that offered students and the community a forum to "promote activism, encourage critical thinking and find links between the academy and the world at large," according to the college's literature on the event.
Programs were held on a variety of topics, including using the Internet for activism, animal rights, purchasing products responsibly, women's health care and the anti-nuclear movement.
"One of our goals at Wells is to get students involved in social action," explained Laura McClusky, an assistant professor of sociology. "We have a lot of emphasis in the curriculum on social justice."
Keynote speaker was Marjorie Agosin, a poet and educator at Wellesley College near Boston. Much of Agosin's speech detailed her experiences in Chile, her native country that she left at 16 to escape the 1973 military coup that overthrew the Socialist government of Salvador Allende.
Agosin spoke of the reign of Augusto Pinochet, a dictator, during which many were abducted, tortured and murdered.
"People disappeared in the middle of the night, were abducted, were sent to concentration camps," she said. "Still, there were people who resisted."
Agosin said poets became a backbone of the resistance, smuggling their words out of the country however they could.
"Words are the most important ways to witness the world," she said. "Poets wrote in exile. Poets wrote in prison. Poets wrote on cigarettes, inside the paper, and sent them away. Poets wrote on the bark of trees outside the prison windows. Women embroidered their stories on scraps of cloth."
Agosin told the audience that activism is a choice that can leave a lasting reminder of injustice and change the future.
"It is much easier to evade responsibility," she said. "What an activist must say is, 'Much has happened here and we are going to give testimony.'"
The Citizens' Say
There are No comments posted.