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| Addison Independant - Middlebury College students found new think tank chapterMiddlebury College students found new think tank chapter Issue Date: Monday, November 7th, 2005 By BARBARA BOSWORTH MIDDLEBURY - About 100 Middlebury College students have founded a chapter of the Roosevelt Institution, a progressive, student-run policy think tank. The students officially launched the chapter with a kickoff event at the Robert A. Jones '59 House on campus on Oct. 27. The institution got its start at Stanford University after the 2004 general election, "not in response to the election results, but in response to the lack of adequate debate," according to Middlebury sophomore Scott Greene, the Middlebury chapter's communications director. Greene said the institution is trying to get students' ideas out in the public realm where they can do some good. Chapters have been established on about 140 campuses nationwide including Yale University, Bates College, and George Washington University. The institution began publishing the journal the Roosevelt review this past summer. At the kickoff Thursday evening student speaker Jessica Singleton, president of the chapter's executive committee, explained that students were motivated by their desire to be more directly involved in the political process. She said college students are always the first ones political candidates contact for the work of canvassing and bringing out the vote. Now students would like to put their own ideas to work, as well as their energy, to find solutions to chronic problems. "Many of us were knocked down by the election of 2004,” by the lack of good solutions to old problems, said Singleton, a sophomore. In an interview following the event, Greene said the institution receives federal funding based on its nonpartisanship. In her address to the group Singleton described an incident in which President Franklin Roosevelt, partially paralyzed by polio, picked himself up off the floor after a fall. Then she said, “We’re just the next generation, throwing our shoulders back, pulling ourselves up, and going to work. Sophomore Alex Garlick, the chapter’s executive director, who served as master of ceremonies at the event, noted that the students in attendance were the future leaders of the country, in politics, journalism, business, and other areas. “Now we have the organization and the network to get things done,” he said. At Middlebury College, students began organizing the chapter last February. The chapter is forming five policy centers, which will begin meeting this week. Each center will deal with a different policy area: international affairs, social justice, the environment, education and governmental reform. Within two or three weeks the centers will have set their goals, Greene said. “We take the policies that are in place and say, ‘This is what’s wrong and this is how to fix them,’” he said. “The policy centers will decide what angle to take with each issue, but the entire student body is available to us.” Gathering New Ideas Upperclassmen’s research and senior theses will be mined for ideas. Students are also making connections with professors. Yale Professor Emeritus John Morton Blum, a guest speaker on Thursday, traced the history of the progressive movement, beginning with Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. Blum said he was “deeply impressed by the turnout” for the event. State Sen. Ethan Strimling of Maine also addressed the gathering, invoking the name of President John F. Kennedy and comparing political groups to pyramids. With a strong base it doesn’t matter so much is at the top of the pyramid he said. Currently progressives “wait for the person who’s exciting and then let them lead us,” Strimling said. “When that person’s gone it falls to pieces.” The country needs people to come up with good ideas to build the pyramid, he added. “Then we don’t have to wait for JFK. JFK is once in a lifetime.”
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The Roosevelt Institution is a nonpartisan, nonprofit national think tank devoted to bringing students' policy ideas to the policy process. The opinions expressed on this site are exclusively those of its members. DC Headquarters: Roosevelt Institution / 2100 M St NW Suite 610 / Washington, DC 20037 || (202) 833-1359 |