Introduction: Student Power in the 1990's

For as long as anyone can remember, student leaders and activists at UMass/Amherst have been complaining about having to constanly ‘reinvent the wheel’ when it comes to learning how to be an effective and successful student advocate. In spite of many attempts, there has been no successful effort to create continuity, no permanent mechanism to transmit history, and no way to find out what was done before and/or whether or not any of it actually worked.

Every few years or so, a new cohort of student leaders gains a certain level of knowledge, hopefully achieves a few victories, and then graduates - leaving little or no permanent record about what they 'knew', what they did, or how they did it. Then the next group comes along -ends up just as isolated and in the dark as their predecessors, and are are forced to relearn everything all over again.

It is a maddening cycle, and one that serves no one and nothing but the status quo.

But now - with the state of technology being what it is - maybe we can change this dysfunctional cycle, if even just a little bit. Maybe now, with the internet, and technologies like blogs, Facebook and YouTube we can create a complete record that is easier for today's student leaders to access. We can do this without having former student leaders intrusively insert themselves into the affairs of today's student leaders. And we can do it without today's student leaders intruding in the lives of former activists who have moved on to other endeavors (ie. new careers, raising families, etc.,)

In other words, I believe that we can and should collaborate virtually, and this blog is a modest attempt to do just that. It is intended to (hopefully) be the beginning of a collaborative effort - not the last word. It is my sincere hope that, eventually, other cohorts and individuals will publish the stories of their successes, and that we either combine them into one central location, or all link to a central location where today's student leaders can access a wide range of input and support.

If you are a current student leader or activist on campus looking for guidance, history, or information - then hopefully you will find what you are looking for here. If it isn't here, hopefully you will be able to use this blog as a link to connect with someone who can help you or answer your questions.

With regard to the history that is covered here, the entries that are written by me the focus mostly on a particular period of extremely successful student organizing that occurred during the early to mid 1990's. This was a period when the SGA, SCERA, and GEO wielded about as much power and influence on campus and at the State House as is possible for any student organization to wield. Hopefully, others will submit comments and/or postings about other successful initiatives and periods of student activism as well. Such submissions are absolutely welcome.

Which brings us to an important point. This blog is not a 'history' per se. It is not an attempt to document every event and person who played a part in student activism at UMass/Amherst. Instead, it is more of a case study about how a smal group of student leaders - possibly as few as a dozen - worked together to create a successful plan and then put that plan into action. Then once that plan was in place, a new generation of talented student leaders - again, led by maybe a dozen people over two years - were able to execute this plan with tremendous success.

As a result, during the 1990's the students, both graduate and undergraduate, enjoyed a string of unprecedented victories both on campus and on Beacon Hill. Using a very specific organizing model (which will be discussed at length on this blog) student leaders accomplished the following:

• For the first time ever, the students initiated and led a grassroots coalition of faculty, staff, students, parents, and administrators that succesfully lobbied for a $23.5 million increase in the University's budget ($12 million of which went to the Amherst campus).
• After nearly 8 years of budget cuts and tuition and fee increases, the students succesfully pressured the administration not to raise tuition and fees for the 1996-97 Academic Year (or might have been the 95-96 academic year).
• In just four short years, the GEO forced the administration to do a complete 180 degree turn around on the issue of Agency Fee (one of the issues that had led to a Grad Employee strike just a few years before).
• The student successfully killed Tuition Retention (the cornerstone of the administration's legislative policy and which would have almost certainly raised students costs even more).
• After one of the most bizarre incidents in the anals of student life, and after a very heated, and personal battle that lasted for more than 12 years, the students used their new found legislative power on Beacon Hill to force the administration to reinstate partial litigation rights for the Student Legal Services Office. What was particularly striking about this victory is that the students were so skilled and effective that they actually succeeded in having a bill reported favorably out of a legislative committee over the objections of the administration.
• And a few other victories to boot.

Each of these victories will eventually be covered in a separate case study/posting here.

But the important thing to remember is that these victories did not happen by accident or coincidence. Instead they were the result of a very specific organizing model that was put into place around 1991 with the re-creation of SCERA (the Student Center for Educational Research and Advocacy). This organizing model became the official policy of the SGA - AND IT WORKED EXTREMELY WELL. The point of this blog is to explain the how and why.

If you are a current student leader, organizer or activist on campus then you should definitely read the postings on this blog. After reading this, you may agree or you may disagree. Certainly, it is up to you as to how you conduct yourself in the advocacy work that you do. But if you are hoping to be successful and effective, I think you will be hard pressed to find a model for organizing and advocacy that works better than the one presented here. And if you disagree I challenge you to outline another model that will be just as or more effective then this one.

But either way, please feel free to submit comments and questions, and offer feedback and criticism. The title of this blog includes the word 'converstion' for a very specific reason. The point of this blog is to promote YOUR success, to support YOUR efforts - to help you be the most articulate, most intelligent, most thoughtful, most reflective, most effective and successful advocate that you can be.

This is not a vain attempt to showcase the victories of the past and then rub them in your face. I am not trying to sanctimonously hold up "our" achievements as if to say "See what we did? You could never possibly hope to be as good as we were."

Remember, I am part of Generation X....... so I've spent a large part of my life listening to a small segment of baby-boomer 'activists' lecture me and my cohorts about how worthless and socially unconscious we supposedly are. And I've had just about enough of that, thank you very much.

I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing more grading or irritating then the embittered or self-congratulatory veteran who believes that their generation 'invented' organizing and activism and that their achievements will never be matched by succeeding generations.

That's complete and utter, unadulterated....nonsense.

You can be successful, and you should be. Actually, you need to be - that is if we are going to successful on those issues that belong to all of us - as students, alumni and citizens of the Commonwealth. We all care about protecting UMass from budget cuts, and keeping UMass affordable and accessible. We all care about making sure that the state and the administration do not abandon their obligation to preserve the mision of UMass - that mission being to keep UMass open to people of all races, colors and socio-economic classes. And we all care about making UMass into the world class University that we, and the citizens of the Commonwealth, deserve.

These are all incredibly important issues that are played out not in the 'sandbox' of the 4th Floor or the SGA Senate, but in the halls of the State House and at the highest levels of state government. They require your participation and success - not just on campus - but on a statewide stage. If you commit yourself, take yourself and your work seriously, you are going to have the opportunity to deal with some very serious and complicated issues that will affect the lives of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives and families. You are going to help determine policy for one of the largest bureaucracies in state government - one with a budget that is now approaching $1 billion. And you are going to interact with policy makers and decicion makers at the highest levels of our state government.

And you shouldn't be expected to learn and do all of this by yourself, with no experience, no training, and no one to answer your questions and/or provide support. So read, study, ask questions, push back, read again, argue, debate, express your own thoughts and ideas, make your own mistakes. But stay involved, don't fall for the 'myth' of apathy, and do not get discouraged. Your work on behalf of the University and the families it serves is incredibly important, and you are joining a community and network of other talented, intelligent, thoughtful, passionate, accomplished students and alumni that stretches as far back as the 1960's and 1970's.

And last but not least, remember that your efforts are honored here and your success is paramount. How could it be any other way? For we are you, and you are us.

In solidarity,
Ted Chambers