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By Arsh Haque, Class of 2015
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| Arsh Haque |
I am apolitical. As a McConnell Scholar, that puts me in a distinct minority amongst my politically-charged companions. I left Harvard’s National Campaign Conference, however, with a new political mindset.
At the conference they discussed the three branches of helping others: volunteering, advocacy, and government. In the college environment I have avoided the latter two branches because I considered them less useful. After seminars with successful advocacy campaigns such as the Green Movement in New York City, I gained a greater appreciation of how advocacy can be effective.
As a National Campaign Ambassador, I am responsible for creating a project coordinating with other schools in the Institute of Politics (IOP). I am joining Meghan Waters and Sean Southard (other McConnell Scholars associated with the IOP) in a joint advocacy campaign.
We received a survey from our department of Political Science that examined discrimination based on gender, race, and sexual orientation. From personal experience and observation, we recognized that intellectual discrimination (e.g. Political ideology, religious beliefs) is present on our and other campuses throughout the United States. Upon investigating the issues we discovered there has been little research or active awareness on this topic.
In response, we have constructed a strategic plan to collect research (at UofL and around the nation) and execute an advocacy campaign concerning this issue. Our timeline looks something like this:
January, 2014: We plan on partnering with a Political Science professor specialized in political research to construct a survey that measures intellectual discrimination on the college campus.
February, 2014: We will distribute the survey throughout UofL. We will also meet with interested organizations and members from schools throughout the IOP network (ex. College Republicans at a primarily Democratic Campus; Muslims at a Christian-dominant campus) who could facilitate the survey at their schools.
March-April, 2014: Other universities in the IOP network will begin to distribute the surveys.
May, 2014: We will have a large, substantial sample from which to draw generalizations about intellectual diversity at the college level. In particular, we will highlight areas of improvement.
Fall (August-December), 2014: We will construct a large-scale strategic advocacy plan.
I did not come out of the National Campaign Conference as a Democrat or Republican. Rather, I left with an appreciation of the difference, and the advocative need that stems from it.
Arsh Haque is a junior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. He is majoring in Political Science and minoring in Creative Writing.