Alumni Return, Promote

And they say Obies are apathetic. For two days later this month, Obies of past and present will inundate the campus to keep the spirit of activism alive. They will convene on Oct. 27 and 28 for the second annual Oberlin Alumni Activism Conference. Alumni, faculty and students plan to spend two days discussing current struggles, exploring careers in activism and making contacts.

The conference will begin on Oct. 27 with a panel titled "A Life of Activism." On the morning of Oct. 28 there will be workshops on education, the environment, gender and sexuality, labor, law, race, community development and international issues. In the afternoon there will be three sessions available. The tentative names for these workshops are "The State of Activism Today and How to Live It," "Activism and the City of Oberlin," and "Careers in Activism."

The conference will end in a less formal setting. There will be contra-dancing and political folk singing on Saturday evening. Anyone is welcome at the conference and the planners "are very eager to encourage student participation," Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith said.

Several members of the class of 1965, including Alan Dawley and Robert Kuttner, editor of The American Prospect, collaborated with politics Professor Marc Blecher, as well as administrators including Goldsmith, Margaret Erikson, Midge Brittingham, Carol Spiros and Daniel Gardner.

Current student-led groups are also involved. "We're working with student organizations such as OPIRG, Abusua, Oberlin Democrats, Trade Watch, SAST, American Indian Council, LGBTU, La Alianza Latina, the Asian American Alliance, SLAC, the Women's Center and School of the Americas Watch," Blecher said.

The first Alumni Activism conference was held in 1994 and "it was a stunning success," according to Blecher. "It attracted hundreds of students and energized them and the alumni that met and worked with them. It was the only event I know of that brought alumni and students to work in such close cooperation. [The conference] helped alumni to inspire hundreds of students into careers in social activism."

This year's conference "has two main purposes," Blecher said. "First, to analyze and assess the state of activism today, and second, to show students by the living examples of the alums that activism can be a vocation, not just an avocation."

Both Goldsmith and Blecher were enthusiastic about the event. "[Activism] can be something you can live and do as a career instead of something you just do after hours, which is a lot more limiting," Blecher said.

"I think it's magnificent. It is altogether in the Oberlin spirit and tradition to come together to think about how we can be better involved in the social world and social problems around us," Goldsmith said.