http://fightbacknews.org/2008/12/students-occupy-new-school-demand-president-kerrey-resign.htm

While reading a posting on feministing about the tactics that people use to get statistics out about rape I came to think about the task that lies before me.

...and I need help!

Students who are first in their families to attend college are:

Last Wednesday I was approached by a friend and fellow WSAC member about how to set up a new Web site for the project that she is working on. Since neither of us had any idea how long it would take for Technology Services to set up a folder on the school’s server, and the site needed to be up and running within a week, I just bought a domain name and set the site up on an independent server.

Note: If the tense of this entry seems odd, it's because it was written live during the forum. Also, sorry for messing up the views count, it increments whenever I edit.

The Student Forum on Global warming is being held at the University of St Thomas on March 03, 2008. UST president Father Dease introduced MN Governor Tim Pawlenty and UST alumnus and world-renowned arctic explorer Will Steger.

On the wall above Will Steger is a graph of "Global CO2 Concentration over the Last 40,000 Years". When the ppm drops below 200, we hit an ice age. Above 300? Warming. Currently the concentration is 385 parts per million. This increase began at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

On February 19, 2008 students of Prairie View A&M in Texas took to the streets to make a statement about voting rights. Students at this HBCU stood up and made a statement "It's 2008. We will vote!" - which was plastered over their banners and t-shirts. Why did these students march 7.3 miles to be able to vote early and register to vote?

The Baltimore Algebra Project is a student-led inter-school coalition of inner city youths in Baltimore, MD. Originally formed as a study group to help students learn after school, it has grown into an activist organization fighting for the right to a good education in inner-cities.

BAP has done a number of great actions and is finding widespread support of their cause (I mean really, who's against funding education for everyone?).

I had my first meeting for my Amnesty International group on campus and although we had at least 15 members that were fully committed, there were only two people that showed up and no one has responded to any of my posts or emails. This is so discouraging and I don't know what else there is to do to revamp this group. We want to do so many things but with so few people (like three) there is hardly anything we can do that would be large enough to raise an eyebrow. Students at University of Houston just don't seem to care, at least on the surface.

Game developers, Reebok's Human Rights program, and mtvU (the media giant's university run media outlet) have teamed together to develop a computer game `based' on the genocide that is ongoing in the Darfur region of Sudan (for more information on Darfur check out savedarfur.org).

    The concept of the game, titled "Darfur is Dying" is that players choose a character (a Darfur refugee) and then play out the day to day struggles of a refugee through tasks such as going toa well while avoiding militiamen. Susana Ruiz, the designer of the game described the original goal of the game as "... trying to make something that would be accessible to the audience that wouldn't go to see a documentary about Darfur, or wouldn't read a newspaper article".

    While this seems like a cool use of technology and has garnered a lot of support and praise for spurring discussing on the issue among those who normally would have none it also has drawn some criticism. This criticism is largely based on its simplistic presentation of the complex issues of Darfur. The game designer admits this however and states this is hopefully a first step in discussion and student activism.

    I have to agree that this is an ingenious idea to (in the words of the all time greatest movie, Hackers) give "a wakeup call to the Nintendo generation." For our classmates who seem wired into the opiates of our day (namely SMS, gaming, AIM, and iTunes) creative solutions using digital media are needed in order to give American's a broader world view and more extensive human right's knowledge. It is also a pleasant surprise seeing two large corporations (things that I as a progressive normally would be wary of) really lead the charge on this issue on a national (and hopefully) international scale. Their action is a commendable one.

    Let's hope some good can come of this game so that we can pressure our leaders into creative solutions to end the bloodshed in the war torn region of Darfur.