In my last entry i spoke about the affect of the undergraduate voice and the power that a college student possesses. This seems to me like a solid topic to start on. I would like to take it a step further though. After reading a chapter out of Michael Moffatt's "Coming of Age in New Jersey", i became very interested in the lives students live behind closed doors. I feel that this particular life style molds a student and plays a very important part in the way he/she gets involved in student activism. I researched the topic of student activism as well as college life. I ended up with more information on student activism and not as much on college life. The college life information that i received was not in the direction that i would have liked. A standard Google search provided me with great information on student activism. It brought up information about recent protests at Berkley in California, the 1960's protest at Berkley and information on the power of student activism. The two best links i found for this topic were http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2008/id20080530_606257.htm
and http://studentactivism.net/2009/12/18/berkeley-responds/ . These links describe the power of activism and situations were student activism played an important role.
Controversy plays a big role with student activism. There are always two sides to this. For example, in the Berkley situation, you had the students and then you had the administration. Both parties believe in two different things, but they both believe they are right. This is what sparks controversy.
From here i need to narrow down my topic a little bit more and see how i can incorporate student living and lifestyle. I need to find more information on student living and how it can affect their level of activism.
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Excellent -- student activism is a very good topic area. You might look at one of the questions I asked on the Analytic Essay assignment, since it might get you thinking about your final paper: "What is the social function of protests in general? Is it possible that protests, like the many
ReplyDelete(both current and historical) Berkeley protests that Friend documents or like the South Africa
divestment rallies that Moffatt mentions (118-119), might resuscitate the liberal arts by getting many students to focus on freedom and social commitment? Might the act of protest itself somehow engender the very meanings and values that the protesters claim are lost? By what mechanism and to what effect? Or do protests just bring people together so they can hook up?"
I recommend you try taking on that question for the analytic essay, and it should get you started thinking about your final paper also.