The Freethinkers of WWU is promoting an open forum for discussing various views on religion. There will be a panel which will consist of several different folks representing their respective beliefs including Humanism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. If you’re in or near Bellingham, Washington and are interested in finding out more about this event, or are simply curious about an interfaith/humanist forum, please check out the event page on Facebook:
Tag Archive for campus
Humanist/Multifaith Panel at Western Washington University
Category: Campus Updates, Current Events, General, Religion |
Tags: Bellingham, campus, christianity, discussion, freethinkers, humanism, Islam, Judaism, secular humanism, Western Washington University, WWU
Campus Update – CFI at GVSU
This is a new year for me, full of many new experiences. I went from a brand new shy member last year, and now, I’m the President. My most common reaction to this occasional realization is… WTF?!?!?! But… I love it. After attending the CFI and SSA conferences this summer, working with my CFI campus group has been one of the most fulfilling tasks I’ve ever taken on.
For example, our first big event this year was bringing in Dan Barker to speak on “Is the Bible an acceptable guide for morality?” (Hint: no) This event was in part to raise visibility of CFI and the billboard we had in September.
Dan Barker with CFI at Grand Valley State University
Next was a Progressive Picnic event, a spin off from an idea started by UNIFI, which was also a great success though the planning was a little rough (catering is HARD!!), all the attendees had a great time and definitely wanted to do it again next year.
An additional opportunity came up where our vice-president and myself were able to go see Richard Dawkins speak about his new book, The Magic of Reality over at Oakland University.
Ellen and Tyler meeting Richard Dawkins
This only covers the main events we’ve had in addition to close to a dozen casual events like Tron and zombie movie nights, Hubble IMAX 3D movie viewing, a crêpe making party, a bake sale, river clean-up and more, along with our regular daily lunches and bi-weekly meetings.
A glimpse at what’s coming up this semester includes a big Carl Sagan Day celebration and a road trip to attend Skepticon IV. This is all only the first semester. I have no idea what we’ll be up to this winter. But we have many eager new members helping us out, some great opportunities, and great motivation to get things done. I know I’m certainly learning a lot about event planning, organizing and management this year but it’s been a fantastic experience and something I hope I can continue to use in the future of this movement.
Shout out to Tyler, Jaime, Kevin, AJ, Heather, Matt, Mike, Sam, Brett, and everyone else at CFI GVSU helping to make this year awesome!
Category: Activism, Campus Updates |
Tags: book, campus, Carl Sagan Day, casual, Center for Inquiry, CFI, conference, Dan Barker, event, Grand Valley, GVSU, leadership, meet, planning, president, Progressive Picnic, Richard Dawkins, Secular Student Alliance, signing, Skepticon, socialize, SSA, UNIFI, VP
My Epic Saga of facing Brother Jed
Many college students know of Brother Jed. Especially those in the skeptic movement. I first heard his name mentioned at the SSA Conference this summer where it was followed by a groan from the whole room of 200+ students. I was unenlightened as to who this man was, but as I will chronicle here, I soon found out.
Last Wednesday, as I was preparing for my panel discussion that night by wasting time on facebook, Dave left me a message informing me that Brother Jed was going to be at my university in two days. I was quickly given the resources to find out who this man was and I immediately sent out a rally cry to my troop of regular members of our chapter of CFI-Grand Valley.
Over the next 24 hours, emails were tossed back and forth between our adult leadership at CFI-Michigan, and myself and other campus leaders on how best to approach this situation. I ended up going with a silent counter-protest of Brother Jed and I spent Thursday night making a stack of posters with positive quotes and sayings including, “You deserve hugs! Love, CFI,” “One Love,” “[citation needed],” “Cool Story, Bro,” and “You ain’t got no pancake mix!” in reference to a semi-famous event that happened at the same spot in years prior and ended up on YouTube.
Thursday night, the facebook event was created, the meeting place was set, and the next morning I woke up after having nightmares about this going horribly wrong. Ever adamant, I checked the facebook event page and a dozen people had confirmed they were attending, with another dozen or so as maybes. Elated, I bundled up for the brisk 50ºF (10ºC) morning, gathered my posters and went to our meetup venue. A half hour passed as six of us eventually gathered, made a few more posters and heard the news that Brother Jed was finally spotted.
I knew that it was going to be a good afternoon when we arrived on location with our posters and cheers and applause came from the small crowd already there.
Our arrival at noon.
Throughout the 4-5 hours we were there, we had this great opportunity to network and speak with the students who were gathered about our organization Center for Inquiry, why we were there and what we are about. A lot of students liked our signs and many of them took our flyer of meeting times and events.
Speaking to students in the crowd about CFI.
Our purpose at this counter-protest was to provide a positive and reasonable alternative to Brother Jed’s angry rants and raves about us all deserving hell. I think with a mix of humor and pertinent quotes, we got many students to think and see our organization as a good thing on this campus.
The sign that got the most laughs. "Cool Story, Bro" was on the opposite side.
Our troop of CFI protesters providing a background of reason to Brother Jed's rants.
Some people after asking about our posters, asked if they could make their own. I had brought some extra poster board and markers with me so they went at it and joined in our peaceful line of reason.
Other people used our signs and made their own throughout the day.
Brother Jed himself didn’t pay us much attention. He did address many of our signs, but we felt his responses were inadequate cop-outs. For example, when he saw my favorite Ghandi quote, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ,” he just yelled about Ghandi being a pervert and a child molester… completely missing the point. When I was holding the “You deserve hugs! Love, CFI” sign he said that as a young lady I shouldn’t be advertising for strangers to hug me and he essentially called me a hussy because of that. After that I received several hugs from some friendly fellows which I gladly accepted. Because I’m a slut like that.
A few LGBT students also came to watch. One held a printed sign stating “I <3 homosexuality.” Several times men would skip by holding hands or make out in front of him, and the crowd would applaud. Brother Jed would yell, “All of you who clapped are going to hell!” to which we only replied with more clapping and cheering.
Throughout the day the crowd grew and grew and slowly moved in closer and closer to Brother Jed which actually made me a bit uncomfortable until I realized what was happening. There was a close ring of people standing around Brother Jed listening and debating, but those who were standing outside of it were talking to each other. I saw dozens of students, strangers to each other before, now talking about religion and debating the issues of free speech at our school and I think that was a beautiful result.
Conversations with a local area evangelical.
By the request of Dave, I live-tweeted a little bit of the event as well. Search for #brojedwatch on Twitter and you can see some Twitpics of the event in-progress. Please use the hashtag if you see him at your campus as well!
Have you had Brother Jed at your campus? What events have you held around his arrival? Check his fall 2011 schedule to see if he’ll be coming to your school!
Category: Activism, Campus Updates |
Tags: activism, bro, Brother Jed, campus, CFI, Christian, college, cool, counter, crazy, evangelica, facebook, free speech, Grand Valley, hell, hugs, Michigan, networking, pancake mix, positive, posters, preach, protest, reason, silent, SSA, story
Freethought and the media- how to effectively market your campus group
Hi all! My name is Jessica, and I really like public relations and the mass media. So what does that have to do with the free thought movement? Well, I’ve found that many campus group leaders, like yourselves, aren’t quite sure how to effectively manage the media and certain PR strategies to benefit their groups. Or maybe you’re not sure what kind of Facebook page is best, or if your group needs a Twitter.
That’s where I come in. I’m here to answer all your questions, and give you the best advice possible, on how to use all these tools, and more, to your utmost advantage.
By now you’re probably wondering why you should bother listing to me. In my going-on-4 years at Boise State University, I’ve held many positions involving print media and PR. I’m actively involved in BSU’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America as their VP, and I manage the website and various social media sites for our independent campus media group. I’m also involved in a business and marketing organization, and of course, my campus secular group.
I’ve had plenty of experience in public relations and media management, which means I can offer you, as a campus group leader, insight on how to work the system to your advantage! In the coming weeks I’ll cover everything from how to distribute a press release so it actually gets noticed to how to track who views your website to when it’s best to post on Facebook! If you have a specific issue or question, you can email me at jessicaswider35@gmail.com and I’ll answer it in my following post. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to help other group leaders get noticed and manage their media relations more effectively!
Category: Managing Your Campus Group |
Tags: campus, college, freethought, group, leader, manage, media, organization, public relations, secular, skeptic, social
Call to Campuses Nationwide!
If you run a campus skeptic/atheist group, let us know! Send us your website or email address and we will add you to our directory!
Please send us the following:
Group Name:
Location:
Websites: (blog, facebook, twitter, etc.)
Contact Email: (non-personal)
Logo or Photo:
We are working on building this directory as a resource for others to find a group near them. Our list will be sorted into High School, College, and other groups, and then sorted alphabetically into state and/or country.
Further, if you would like to provide updates on your campus group on this blog, become one of our Campus Updaters. You can send us public event information to advertise weekly for free. Let the nation know when you’re volunteering or hosting a public lecture. It’ll connect you with other campuses and provide inspiration for others. Win-win!
If you have more time to contribute and you have a knack for writing, become a current events writer or columnist! We would love more student perspective, tips on working with groups, and more. Just email ellen[at]skepticfreethought[dot]com if you’re interested.
Category: Campus Updates, General |
Tags: atheist, campus, club, columnist, community, connect, contact, event, group, high school, perspective, promotion, skeptic, students, university, update, write, writer
