Creating Your Vision

What is your vision for the campus and/or community?

Our vision includes: (1) A more engaged democratic campus created through grassroots participation, the establishment of social activist networks and the harnessing of student political and social power (2) An integrated approach to change through community development.

Assessing Your Campus and Community

What campus/community problem does your blueprint address? What structures, practices and policies institutionalize the problem?

Currently NMU has stagnant political atmosphere that has become fossilized by academic theory. This has resulted in the recession of student power and a stifled progressive community. Reasons for this are:
1. Non-responsive student government
2. Administrative inability to engage the student body in political and current events
3. Pre-manufactured organizational institutions resulting from generational misunderstandings in the university community
4. A reactionary outlook from student government, student publications and administration promoting general disinterest

What communities will you work with?

• Campus community
• Local community

Setting Goals and Deliverables

• Goal 1: To create a powerful, progressive student voice on campus and in the community
• To have 50 non-graduating student members by Winter, 2008
• Promote progressive values at at lest one large event in reaction to Ann Coulter’s presence at NMU
• One large, progressive event in Fall, 2008 for the purposes of recruitment and publicity
• Assist at least four member groups to host progressive events during the ‘08/‘09 school year
• Goal 2: To install a progressive majority in our student government who can be held accountable to the progressive student body
• To elect at least 13 progressive student representatives to student government
• Elect a progressive president and vice president to student government
• To appoint at least five progressive students to the student finance committee
• To win the Spring, 2008 student government elections on a progressive platform
• Goal 3: To develop a strong, progressive leadership presence on campus and in the community
• Develop ten student leaders by Winter, 2008
• Network with four leaders or groups in the Marquette community
• Host Campus Camp Wellstone at the beginning of Fall, 2008
• Put on at least two specialized leadership skills trainings as needed

What is your primary approach? Organizing

Why did you choose this approach?

Although our blueprint depends heavily on capacity building, networking, and governance, at the core we are organizing the student population. True organizing encompasses all the other types of approach while emphasizing the need for mass movement. By strengthening progressive organizations and putting progressive leaders in influential positions we can unify the student body into a single progressive voice. These goals will take a great amount of energy and a number of passionate students to achieve.

Did you have secondary approaches? What are they?

Our secondary approaches include capacity building, networking and governance. Networking is necessary to unite the campus leaders and their groups behind a single effort. Independently each group has reached a ceiling and it is necessary to combine resources if we want to see changes. To create this change we are putting people in governance positions and are also working within the university “government” system. To ensure that these are not temporary changes, it is necessary to build up younger leaders. Without this essential investment into the future of our efforts are in vain.

What will your tactics and activities be?

To achieve our goals we have formed the Progressive Student Round Table (PSRT)*, a coalition of student organizations and independent students. The group has two committees (Progressive Political Action Committee (P-PAC) and Activate Progress) which fulfill the group’s dual purposes. P-PAC will act as a political body that recruits and elects progressive students to student government positions. In the spring of each semester, this committee will run a political campaign to elect students on a progressive platform. Once these students have been sworn into office, they will be accountable to the PSRT. PSRT’s second function will be fulfilled by Activate Progress. This committee will bring attention to issues that are significant to the student body serve as the recruitment and training branch. This will be done in a variety of ways including fundraising events, action-oriented events, mobilizing to support a particular issue, educational events, and providing training opportunities. This structure will enable PSRT to achieve the above goals while also sustaining itself indefinitely.

Connecting Back to Vision

How does your strategy contribute to your vision for your campus and/or your community?

The strategy and the vision are mutually reinforcing. To create the necessary conditions for an active and engaged campus we must first involve students and create leadership to implement the plan. A successfully implemented strategy completes the first step toward the vision. To craft a culture that is anti-apathy and pro-student engagement we must implement the strategy in a way that is attractive to younger students and those already invested in the student governance status quo. The process for organization building and ally identification and recruitment then becomes the first steps toward the vision.

Resources and skills you will need

What skills do you need for this approach?

We will need financial support (direct funding to help writing grants) as well as help or guidance dealing getting media attention outside the local sphere. I also anticipate connections to outside groups or individuals being extremely important.

1. Media Skills
2. Organizational support
3. Networking Skills
4. The ability to form coalition
5. Inspirational students to attract new progressive organizations
6. Internet design capabilities
7. Publishing know-how / graphic design
8. Outreach organizing skills
9. Students with Public Speaking Skills
10. Digital Cinema students