Student conference aims to spark political activism on campus
Story by Kristin Brown
6:04 p.m. Thursday, July 13, 2006
Washington — What brings a college student all the way from Kansas to Washington in the middle of summer break?
Politics, of course.
Over 1,000 students from around the country flocked to Washington for the Campus Progress National Student Conference.
Lennea Carty, who will be a senior at the University of Kansas in the fall, is one of them.
"I thought it would be a great change to learn about how to be a better progressive activist on campus and start up other groups,” Carty said.
Several other students were also selected to represent Kansas at the conference that’s sponsored by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
Politically left-leaning students mixed and mingled while listening to panel discussions, meeting with activist groups, and bouncing ideas off of each other.
The goal of the conference is to energize the liberal movement on college campuses. After meeting so many students from around the country, some students said they're ready to get to work back in Kansas.
"There's the kernels, there's the start for a movement, I think, but I think more people need to be made aware of the situations and educated on what's going on,” said Lyndsay Stauble, Wichita State University. “I think the more people know, the more they're going to want to get involved.”
The highlight of the day was a speech from Illinois Senator Barrack Obama, a favorite among the crowd.
Conference organizers hope the students will take what they're heard at the conference in Washington and kick-start a political movement back home.
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