Let's admit something that has been fairly obvious for the past few months: this semester was pretty slow for news. Compare this to last fall, and there's no presidential election, no new chancellor. There were no big local electoral races or campus decisions like last spring's ASM constitution vote either. Overall, it was an incredibly boring time to be a politically involved Badger.
That's one reason why we couldn't be more impressed with this campus.
Even though this past semester may have lacked some of the sexier issues of past terms, student engagement and activism remained high, showing that the enthusiasm for 2008's Obama campaign was no fluke. This semester students made their voices heard on a wealth of topics because the issues were important, even without a charismatic young leader throwing out buzzwords like ""change"" and ""hope"" at them.
The examples of student activism were bountiful this past semester, and every group involved should be proud. Granted, we recognize that statement is somewhat self-laudatory, considering this editorial board's own involvement in the call for a student voting member on the Alcohol License Review Committee and the corresponding boycott of the Nitty Gritty. We recognize the role we played in the event, as well as the role of our colleagues at The Badger Herald (and we can say it was a pleasure to work with the Herald for once, as opposed to our usual battle for campus news supremacy).
However, it was a coalition of students that were really responsible for ultimately putting UW-Madison student Mark Woulf into the student seat on the ALRC. Ald. Bryon Eagon, District 8 deserves a large portion of the credit for launching the issue in the first place and communicating the details of the cause to his student constituents, as does Woulf himself for his impressive work previously on the ALRC as a non-voting member. And all of the people who showed up at the Common Council vote, from members of the College Democrats to the College Republicans to almost the entire ASM Legislative Affairs Committee, helped show Madison's leaders that students can have just as much of an impact on city affairs as anybody.
But the ALRC was far from the only local issue that caught the eye of students. Students also had a sizable presence at the vote to approve the creation of the Regional Transit Authority. UW-Madison is an integral part of the Dane County community, and it is good to see students taking an interest in a vote that could change the very shape of the Madison metro area in the years to come.
Of course, it is hard to talk about campus activism without mentioning the Student Labor Action Coalition. We have been critical of some of SLAC's tactics in the past, as often their events seemed like nothing more than publicity stunts that added up to few concrete results. But dating back to the university's cancelation of its Russell Athletic contract in February, SLAC has been working as part of a national effort to get the apparel company to rehire over 1,000 Honduran workers, which it finally did just weeks ago. SLAC deserves credit where credit is due for its part in this achievement. Also, with Chancellor Biddy Martin recently reprimanding Nike for its labor issues, it appears the UW-Madison administration may finally start taking a principled stand for labor rights. While we may not agree with many of their cake-sending and office-storming tactics, we do hope SLAC can continue to effectively fight for the workers of UW-Madison's business partners.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of student activism this semester. We haven't even touched on the groundswell of diversity discussions that raged on campus over the last few weeks. But we do feel the need to say that wherever student activism occurs, it needs to continue. Students are a force to be reckoned with, and with County Board elections nearing, now would be a terrible time to lose our voice. Let's keep the momentum going, and make sure the student voice continues to echo across the isthmus.
