Graham Spanier is a pretty smart guy. Usually, when we on the board of opinions try to take him to task, we have to labor assiduously to construct compelling prose.
But this time, we can just let the headlines do the talking.
In an issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education published Friday, Spanier wrote a column titled, "Is Campus Activism Dead -- or Just Misguided?"
In the column, he laments "the silence of today's young people on major issues."
However, a headline in Thursday's Daily Collegian told a totally different story: "Registration breaks 100,000." The story recounted how voter registration numbers in Centre County had reached an all-time high. And if the hundreds of student volunteers working to register fellow students the past months are any evidence, we'd bet students played a big role in breaking that record.
Clearly, activism isn't completely dead on campus.
At a simplistic level, the point Spanier is trying to make is accurate. Without a draft or students' right to vote at stake, students don't have as much motivation to protest in the streets as they did in the 1960s and '70s.
But that doesn't mean we're not involved. As this election shows, students do get involved in large numbers when they find an issue that they feel passionate about.
But what concerns us more about Spanier's column is his argument that those students who do speak out or protest are not as informed about the issues as the student leaders of his youth.
He specifically singles out The United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), which have staged sit-ins and other protests to urge Penn State to adopt the Designated Suppliers Program, which aims to increase living standards for workers that help make Penn State apparel.
He writes, "Most students look at me blankly when I try to engage them in a discussion..."
Spanier's comment is an inaccurate characterization of groups like USAS/SLAP. Though they may have different priorities than him regarding the DSP, that does not make them any less informed about the issues at hand.
Student activism is neither dead nor misguided on Penn State's campus.
While their efforts might not be as widespread or as dramatic as they were in Spanier's day, students are still trying -- and succeeding -- in effecting change on the issues that matter to them.
