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Hello!
Happy March!! It's women's history month - and on the 8th it's International Women's Day, as well as a day many have called for a women's strike. In honor of all women are
doing to enhance women's rights, we dedicate this proFlet to ACTION. In this edition you can read about a scholar-activist in Taiwan, you can listen to a discussion about scholar-activism in higher education, you can enjoy the music of persistence, and you can engage with activists on social media. So here is to all the ACTION that is making this world a better place, especially for the women of higher ed! As always, thank you for joining us in this conversation at proFmagazine - we want to hear from you!
All our best!
The proFmagazine Team....
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@WomensVoicesNow An online women’s rights media platform and film festival connecting conscientious artists, filmmakers, writers, activists, and advocacy organizations worldwide
@clarewinterton VP Innovation & Advocacy, Global Fund for Women. Passionate about social activism, global women’s issues, philanthropy, the arts, culture & media
@WomenintheWorld In association with
@NYTimes
. Convening women leaders, activists & change-makers to share stories & offer solutions for a better life for women & girls.
@RaquelWillis An activist and communications associate at the Transgender Law Center, Willis speaks out on gender identity and other issues affecting the trans community.
@faiza_n_ali Organizer & justice activist. Passionate about community, rights, faith, politics & #MuslimVOTE. Born & bred Bklyn. Bleeds orange.
@BitchMedia Feminist Response to Pop Culture
@GloriaSteinem Gloria Steinem, author and feminist activist.
@BEVERLYBOND Creator of Black Girls Rock, Inc.
@feministabulous senior correspondent/producer @voxdotcom, no i don't have justin trudeau's number, advisor @GirlUp
@lsarsour Palestinian-American-Muslim, racial justice & civil rights activist, media commentator. Born & raised in Brooklyn.
@msladyjustice1 National Co-Chair, @womensmarch, Executive Director, Gathering for Justice, Founder @nyjusticeleague & @justiceleagueca
@rowefinkbeiner Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner - MomsRising Executive Director/CEO, author, speaker, and radio host.
@WangCecillia Deputy Legal Director, National ACLU. Immigrants' rights advocate. Civil rights lawyer. Former public defender.
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Recent Protests (Re)Turn National Attention Toward Campus Activism
by Suzette
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College and university campuses are once again becoming the heart of protest and activism. With anger advancing to the forefront for many in the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration, recent campus events have even turned aggressive and violent. Of course, campuses have been hotbeds of activism and social change for decades. While university students did express collective concerns about various social and political issues prior to the 1960s, it wasn’t until the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement that we saw regular and significant campus activism. During that turbulent time, several student protests turned violent, such as the clash at Kent State University in 1970 resulting in the death of four students. After the significant spike in campus protests in the ’60s and ’70s, however, things seemed to die down. From the 1980s through the 2010s, some were wondering if campus activism was a thing of the past. But in recent years, even before the 2016 election of Donald Trump prompted the largest protests since the Vietnam era, there seemed to be renewed enthusiasm for activism on college and university campuses. A 2015 article in The Atlantic took an in-depth look at this revitalized interest in protest. “There’s certainly something of a movement moment happening right now,” said Professor Angus Johnston of the City University of New York at the time. Johnson runs a blog, studentactivism.net, whose goal is to spotlight and advocate for activism on college campuses. “The campus environment right now has, for the past couple of years, reminded me a lot of the early- to mid-’60s moment, where there was a lot of stuff happening, a lot of energy – but also a tremendous amount of disillusionment and frustration with the way that things were going in the country as a whole and on the campuses themselves.”
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This proFcast, our second episode, features a discussion between proFmagazine's Founding Editor and Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University. Sara is a scholar-activist who conducts research on the cost of higher education. Through her work she demonstrates how colleges and universities can and should make education more affordable and, therefore, more accessible to students. In this discussion, Sara and Suzette share their respective interests in scholarly work that facilitates change. Ultimately, Sara suggests, “hope is a strategy” that will lead to more affordable and accessible higher education, as well as a strategy that will help you achieve your goals and affect the change you seek, no matter what issue motivates you. You just have to believe in your work and use your voice.
Thanks for listening!
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proFile of Dr. Ketty Chen, Vice President - Taiwan Foundation for Democracy
by Rebecca
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“For me personally, standing by the stage watching President-elect Tsai deliver her victory speech was something I would never forget.” On January 16, 2016 Dr. Ketty Chen watched Tsai Ing-wen became the first female president of Taiwan in a landslide victory. For Ketty and the student activists who called for a break with past policies (specifically the ruling KMT party), it was a special moment. “Being part of the presidential election was the most trying, difficult, yet rewarding experience of my life so far.”
Ketty was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States just before starting middle school. She remembers going to school in an authoritarian system. “They made us sing songs praising Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen, teaching us that we are all Chinese, and we have to speak Mandarin and be good Chinese citizens. The teachers would make us speak only Mandarin Chinese and whenever we spoke Taiwanese, she made us feel like we were lower class or inferior.” The history of Taiwan is complex. Chaing-Kai-sheck and his followers fled China to the small island-nation of Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese Civil War. They established a government and the Kuomintang (KMT) became the ruling party. Although the government in Taiwan claimed to be the true China, China considers it to be part of their country. This issue of which China is the “real China” continues to be an on-going political debate between China and Taiwan as well as much of the rest of the world. Within Taiwan, a sizable majority of the population consider themselves Taiwanese, rather than Chinese, and a majority favor independence.
For Ketty, growing up in Taiwan wasn’t easy. The KMT was oppressive in its efforts to maintain control, often resorting to the use of violence and intimidation. Ketty remembered that her family moved to Texas “after a family friend, a professor in the United States, was found dead after he was called in for questions by the Garrison Command while returning to visit family in Taiwan.” But the move from Taipei to Dallas was also difficult. Ketty recalled, “kids could be mean…I would immerse myself in books and English literature to escape the torment.” She felt close to the “Aunties” and “Uncles” of the established Taiwanese-American community, and remembers that though her family could still return to Taiwan, many of the older ex-pats could not.
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Active Minds
:
The leading nonprofit organization that empowers students to speak openly about mental health in order to educate others and encourage help-seeking.
Know Your IX
:
A survivor- and youth-led organization that aims to empower students to end sexual and dating violence in their schools...
Student Voice
:
Student Voice strives to advance the student movement by bridging the gap between students and education communities around the world.
Campus Activism:
This interactive website has tools for progressive activists. You can use it to start a campaign, share activism resources, publicize events, and build networks. Or you can join an existing campaign, get resources, learn about upcoming activist events, and let people find you.
Feminist Campus
:
A project of Feminist Majority Foundation
(FMF), is the world’s largest pro-choice student network.
Campus Pride:
The primary objective of Campus Pride is to develop necessary resources, programs and services to support LGBTQ and ally students on college campuses across the United States.
Power Shift
:
The Power Shift Network mobilizes the collective power of young people to mitigate climate change and create a just, clean energy future and resilient, thriving communities for all.
Students for Education Reform:
Students for Education Reform is the only national nonprofit supporting college students who are organizing for education reform.
Black Lives Matter
:
#BlackLivesMatter is an online forum intended to build connections between Black people and our allies to fight anti-Black racism, to spark dialogue among Black people, and to facilitate the types of connections necessary to encourage social action and engagement.
Dismantling Racism
:
Because organizational and community development requires an understanding of how historically constructed oppression is inextricably woven into our culture and institutions, we provide facilitation, curriculum design, ongoing workshops, and other supports for leaders, organizations, and communities.
The NWF Campus Ecology program has been working with colleges and universities for more than 25 years to protect wildlife and habitat through campus sustainability efforts.
Democracy Matters
:
A non-partisan campus-based national student organization, works to get big private money out of politics and people back in.
Mobilize.org:
Convenes Millennials to discuss the issues most important to them, provides an opportunity to work collaborative to propose solutions to those issues and challenges, and then invests in groups of Millennials (both with our financial, and leadership resources) as they work to implement those solutions across the country.
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“Time and again she comes running towards you with a bunch of hopes she has found and picked in the undergrowth of the times we are living. And you remember that hope is not a guarantee for tomorrow, but a detonator of energy for action today.”
—John Berger, author, Ways of Seeing
by Angela Y. Davis
"Whether you've grown up with the courage and conscience of Angela Davis, or are discovering her for the first time,
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle is a small book that will be a huge help in daily life and action, from exposing the "prison industrial complex" that she named long ago to understanding that leaders are only leaders
if they empower others. She herself expo
ses facts and makes connections, but also leads in the most important way–by example."
—Gloria Steinem
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“Have you ever wanted to make a difference but didn't know how?
Grassroots
is the book you've been waiting for. Using examples drawn from progressive and feminist campaigns all over the country, Veteran activists Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards explain how to organize your friends, your community, and most important, yourself.” ―
Katha Pollitt
by pattrice jones
"pattrice jones has her finger on the pulse of the real America . . . a country teeming with homeless shelters, alcohol and drug rehab centers, rape crisis hotlines, battered women's shelters, prisons, law enforcement agents, and soldiers.
Aftershock
is a manual for the many wounded souls seeking to survive such trauma and to participate in the struggle for a more just society." --
Mickey Z.
, author of
The Seven Deadly Spins
and
50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know
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The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs
"Reading Grace Lee Boggs helps you glimpse a United States that is better and more beautiful than you thought it was. As she analyzes some of the inspiring theories and practices that have emerged from the struggles for equality and freedom in Detroit and beyond, she also shows us that in this country, a future revolution is not only necessary but possible." —Michael Hardt, co-author of Commonwealth
by Hillary Rettic
Lifelong Activist is a unique and luscious hybrid, part inspirational tract and part practical textbook on sustaining effective and dedicated activism over the long, long haul. --
SusanG, Daily Kos
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Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
by bell hooks
"bell hooks has always written in a very readable style, eschewing footnotes because people in her hometown told her they were put off by books with footnotes. This time, she set out to write a book that explains feminism, particularly for a mainstream audience….certainly she has once again made the point that feminists need to try to reach women of all races and classes." ―Carol Anne Douglas, Off Our Backs (2001)
"The book offers succinct advice on questions that arise in new grassroots advocacy groups: Should we organize and lobby with letters or email? Should we get a lawyer? What are our rights? How do we get media people to care? It’s also a great refresher for long-time organizers, reminding the reader to ponder, before embarking on a campaign, whether she is willing to undergo hunger strikes and civil disobedience, be arrested, and/or remortgage her home for a full-page ad in the
Globe and Mail." --Carra NoelleSimpson, Geist
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"
Activists beyond Borders
makes a compelling case for the conditions under which international collaboration among activists across nations can achieve change that would have been impossible otherwise. The authors take care to develop a clear model of the factors necessary for such change, they are restrained in their willingness to generalize beyond the cases they have examined, and they supplement the contemporary campaigns analyzed in the book with historical examples."―
Signs
Organizing for Social Change
by Kimberley Bobo, Steve Max and Jackie Kendall
In the hands of young organizers, this book has helped to build strategic campaigns, provide best practices and develop the next generation of leaders. --Gregory Cendana, President 2009-10 U.S. Student Association (USSA)
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