FFRF's billboard was removed from Rancho Cucumunga after a request which may have been from the city.  First Amendment advocates are concerned that this is censorship and a potential violation of free speech protection.  Read More...

The Texas State Board of Education meeting on November 19 was met with a big purple dinosaur which asked that question.  Chairman Don McLeroy has made statements indicating that he does not accept the evidence of evolution.  The meeting held was to determine the state science standards for the next ten years.  Read More...

Nir Barkat, a self-made millionaire and a secular Jew, defeated ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Meir Proush in elections held on November 11.  The previous administration was criticized for unfair distribution of funding for ultra-Orthodox areas and for imposing conservative social values.  Nir Barkat is expected to promote tourism and high-tech development for job creation.  Read More...

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has a short 33 question quiz on civics related issues.  You can take the quiz here.  You may find the results surprising.  Keep these results in mind when speaking to others about the separation of church and state.  Knowing the history of a concept and what actual documents and laws state can go a long way in a debate.

Edwin Kagin debated Rev. Matt Slick at an event sponsored by the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.  You can check out his video, as well as others here.

Paul Bloom from Slate covers the topic of religious societies and non religious societies and their impact on human behavior.  The results?  Some of the most secular societies are extraordinarily nice.  Read More...

Atheist Revolution blogger vjack writes about the recent protests conducted nationwide over the passing of a proposition in California which defined legal marriage as a union of one man and one woman.  Even in tiny communities people came out to protest.  What is the lesson, learn to face the fear of being vocal about issues you care about.  Read More...

Call us toll free at 1-877-842-9474. You can also email us at ssa@secularstudents.org. We are always happy to hear from you and answer any questions or concerns!

This is your eNewsletter and we are always updating and changing to fit your needs, so please let us know what you think of our new format! Email enews@secularstudents.org with any suggestions, ideas, or comments.

Editor-in-Chief:

Editors:  Elizabeth R.A. Liddell, August E. Brunsman IV, Hemant Mehta, Jacquie Kuzma, Brian Gelletly

The end of another year is quickly approaching.  In the United States, elections have been mostly completed (We're looking at you, Minnesota!).  Since one year is nearly wrapped up, we have exciting things to report in the Year-End Review and our Group Running Guide is freshened up.  We hear a secular plea from the University of Alberta along with reports from group events with PZ Myers and Sunsara Taylor and we will dive into marketing, atheist style.

by Ian Bushfield

In 2004, Paul Welke couldn't attend his convocation ceremony. The avowed atheist was in Bosnia at the time, serving for the Canadian Peacekeeping forces that were deployed there. The University offered him the ability to attend a convocation at a later date, but upon reading the Chancellor's charge to use his degree "for the glory of God and honour of you country," he pledged not to attend until the ceremony reflected his belief system.

by Alex DiBranco

This is the last of a three-part series by Alex DiBranco.  Read part one here, part two here.

The Arrogant Atheist Part II: How Do You Know Whether Someone is an Atheist?

Although much of the myth of the “arrogant atheist” I’ve ascribed to a disconnect between what not believing in God means to a theists versus an atheist, I’ve heard stories from friends about truly arrogant atheists who I wouldn’t like either. Which got me thinking about how, exactly, you know whether a given person is an atheist, or otherwise non-religious.

In a conversation with Dartmouth sophomore Joseph, a former Protestant who now considers himself non-religious, I took my first opportunity to test out a theory: that the only time theists become aware that they are talking with an agnostic or atheist is if their companion brings it up. “Do most of your friends and acquaintances know you do not believe in God?” I asked toward the end of our conversation. “You know,” Joseph responded thoughtfully after a moment, “they probably think I’m Protestant.”

“I completely assume that whoever I’m talking to is Christian,” confirmed junior Sharon, a somewhat agnostic Catholic friend.

But what if the only time religious people realize they’re talking to an atheist is when they get an arrogant one looking to attack them for their belief in God? People don’t tend to identify their religious views off-hand, particularly since religion is not viewed as an acceptable topic for polite society, and even saying you’re an atheist can be taken by religious people as aggressive.

Fundamentally, this works both ways. The people who I know without a doubt to be Christian are the ones condemning me to Hell. If I based my perspective of all religious people on that, I’d have a decidedly negative perspective on religion. But the difference is that we often simply assume that decent people who don’t mention their beliefs are religious. Furthermore, religious symbols like the cross or Star of David identify people subtly, and while mentioning God makes a person’s religious affiliation clear, not mentioning God tells us nothing about someone’s core beliefs. And if the non-arrogant nonbelievers don’t find a reason to say “by the way, I’m an atheist,” religious people don’t realize they do know atheists without inflated egos.

Then there is the added difficulty that many people are uncomfortable “coming out” as atheists. At first, the idea of “coming out” as an atheist—terminology borrowed from the gay rights movement—seemed odd to me. But then I heard stories. Michael Amini, president of the University of Washington chapter of the Secular Student Alliance, said that when he came out to his family as an atheist, his Mormon parents didn’t even trust him enough to leave him alone with his siblings. And if you wanted to go into politics, being known as an atheist would kill most campaigns for high-level positions. Suddenly, the similarities in terminology make more sense.

In addition, while plenty of nonreligious people are involved in activism and community service, they work within secular groups, where the members are not advertising their belief systems

Organizations such as the student groups under the umbrella of the Secular Student Alliance are attempting to counteract the negative view of atheists. SSA’s Executive Director August Brunsman said they try to provide support to students coming out as atheists, to educate campuses about what it means to be atheist, and to engage in atheism. Secular groups are now trying to step into the role traditionally filled by religious centers—Amini said that the U-Washington Secular Student Union has increased their focus on participating in local/community service, often in conjunction with Christian student groups, so gain recognition as overtly nonreligious people. Amini’s group also hosts “Ask a Religious Person” nights, where they invite a person of a given faith to their meeting and have a respectful dialogue about their beliefs in an attempt to erode the suspicion and negative prejudices toward atheists by religious communities.

Most religious people only hear about atheism in negative terms from their religious mentors, so beside thinking they don’t know atheists in their personal lives, they also tend not to be able to think of good famous people who are atheists or nonbelievers. Nathan, an Episcopalian Dartmouth senior, saw atheism as having a negative impact on society due to Richard Dawkins and the other “new atheists,” who he considered no better than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. (Incidentally, I found Dawkins’ The God Delusion much more interesting and informative, and much less arrogant and downright offensive than any work of Robertson or Falwell.) I asked whether the existence of Robertson and Falwall then made religion a negative impact on society. “There is a certain logic to that conclusion,” Nathan admitted, but “while religion does have equivalents for Stalin and Dawkins, who are the atheist equivalents for Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, or King?” (The religiosity of Gandhi is debatable.) I emailed him pointing out that, while I don’t like the game of tallying up points for every positive (or negative) person to come from theism versus atheism—not to mention there have been far more nominally religious persons so it’s hardly an equivalent comparison—I had to point out that many key members of the women’s movement were atheists or nonreligious (since Bible teaching weren’t in their favor), such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I thought they alone outweighed any negative impact Dawkins and Hitchens might have had in being offensive and arrogant.

Since there’s no atheist identifying equivalent for wearing a crucifix, the star of David, or a headscarf, my friends and I tried to come up with a new atheist symbol. The best we could come up with was the Jesusfish with legs attached (go evolution), but while my Catholic friend thought that was fantastic, we concluded that it would probably be considered offensive—plus, it could just denote Christians who also accept evolution. It turns out that Richard Dawkins has come up with merchandise with a scarlet “A” for Atheist—but people would probably just think the “A” was for “Alex” if I wore it.

 

But Why Be An Atheist?

“How can life have any meaning whatsoever without belief in the fact that God will help you through the rough times and that he will always be by your side,” asked an anonymous Protestant Catholic. “An atheist might as well be an animal: live, breath, eat and die.”

Another Christian student responded, “I have nothing against atheists and I think they can be great moral people. As somebody who believes in the love and grace God has to offer us all, I feel like atheists are missing out on something incredibly profound, and that saddens me. I also think that some of the attitudes atheists perpetuate can be destructive and counterproductive toward human progress (as harmful as the intolerant attitudes held by some believers).”

When I decide to admit to myself that I was an atheist, not an agnostic, it seemed frightening, this idea that there’s no god, no afterlife, nothing but this world, myself and other people. Today, my beliefs make me very happy. For one thing, I can’t just snap my fingers and change my beliefs, and it would be worse for me to delude myself. But as it happens, I don’t want to change my beliefs.

Believing that this is the only chance I get inspires me to pour myself into making this world as full of meaning as I can, for myself and for others. Isaac Asimov put it better than I can:

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it… Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don’t have the evidence to prove the God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.

If religious people’s attempts to convert atheists are defended as motivated by their true belief that otherwise they’ll go to Hell, I could see an atheist attempting to convert somebody out of their true belief that there’s nowhere else for that person to go after death, so they’re wasting their life on belief. (Honestly, if when I die it turns out God exists, and the only big black mark against me heading to heaven is that the mind He gave me didn’t believe in him, and that condemned me to Hell, I’d live my life the exact same way, because the benevolent God I’d be willing to worship would never have envisioned Hell.) No, I’m not promoting atheist missionaries—the Christian ones are annoying enough—but I definitely am happy that I found my way to atheism, and would be happy to help anyone else who was interested come to terms with that belief.

But anyway, from my perspective, you can lose a lot by believing in God if there is none (the inverse of Pascal’s Wager). David Mills puts it harshly in Atheist Universe: “The fact is that, whether we like it or not, our earthy life is the only life we’re ever going to experience. If we sacrifice this one life in doormat subservience to a nonexistent god, then we have lost everything!” Dawkin’s The God Delusion argues “it could be said that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing, than if you bet on his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc.” Mills’ and Dawkins’ statements could be objected to by religious persons on the grounds that they aren’t considering the good parts of religion—for instance, my friend Catherine says she “sees God in everything,” which makes the world particularly beautiful to her.

I don’t know what that’s like, but I often find the world breathtakingly beautiful without believing in a god, and I have a lot of faith in humanity. Although sometimes, I’m deeply upset by the terrible things that are done by people or that happen to them arbitrarily, at least I’m not tempted to consider the people killed by the Katrina hurricane casualties of the wrath of God—many may focus on the love of God, yet there are plenty of Hell houses and intolerant diatribes religion gives rise to as well. I don’t want to get too in-depth in weighing the plusses and minuses of religion versus atheism, just indicate that embracing atheism can be a very good thing.

Atheism is a motivation for my campus activism and job search in the non-profit/humanitarian sphere, since I believe that every person who suffers or dies a miserable death in this world has lost their one chance for fulfillment and happiness, each a tragic waste. Nathan raised an objection to viewing activists in the women’s rights movement as like Martin Luther King: “I’m not speaking to accomplishments, I’m speaking to driving factors,” he stated, claiming that King was driven by his faith, while Elizabeth Cady Stanton was not motivated by her atheism. I argued that Stanton was driven by her atheism. Not only because it gave her freedom to act—as she said, “The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation”—but also because if she believed that there wouldn’t being any afterlife offering women benefits for having been nice and humble on Earth, it would certainly be more important to her to get women freedom and rights in this world.

Nathan’s response: “Hmm, that's a motivation I’d never considered, but it makes sense. I’m glad we’re having this conversation”

Nobody Understands

While people attack books like Richard Dawin’s The God Delusions as offensive and arrogant, it’s still a best-seller (and it can’t all be selling to self-described atheists, since there’s only about 2% of us), so maybe the attention it’s bringing to atheism can be utilized toward more understanding.

Atheist organizations such as the American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion Foundation work toward atheist/freethinking-friendly legislation and educating people on atheism. In Washington, the Seattle Atheists run weekly meetings, blood drives, picnics, gift-wrapping to raise money for charity, and a Darwin Day celebration—attempting to provide the positive community aspects of religious membership without the doctrine. At the University of Washington, a Secular Student Union provides a forum for the discussion of religious and non-religious beliefs. What impact might a Secular Student Union have here? Or an atheist on Dartmouth’s Multi-Faith Council?

Only 45% percent of Americans would vote for an atheist, making atheism the most discriminated against characteristic a political candidate can have. It is less desirable than homosexuality, being female, being black, and a number of other oft-discriminated against characteristics. But other faith consider themselves discriminated against as well. Shannon, an Evangelical Christian, pointed to Jon Stewart’s mocking the “Christian Right.” Ellie, a Catholic junior getting married at the end of the summer, feels that she has to put up with a lot of “crap” over her religion—like a friend who dressed up as a priest to represent pedophilia at a “14 Deadly Sins” party on campus, and told her to “lighten up” when she was offended.

On the one hand, I’m tempted to point out that, like Jon Stewart’s mocking of George W. Bush, it’s acceptable to make jokes at the expense of the person, or group (GOP) in power. But, reading the 1700 word blitz Smith dashed off and sent me, in which she even promoted “respectful disagreement,” I was willing to admit that she had a valid point.

It’s still significant that the surveys—mine and the national one—both show that 95% of respondents would be willing to vote for a Catholic, so they aren’t that poorly off in comparison to atheists. Many of the theist students I spoke to also saw atheism as the far more discriminated against belief system. But nonetheless, that doesn’t mean understanding atheism shouldn’t go along with understanding other religions better. Dartmouth students are remarkably willing to take time out from their finals cocoons to answer questions in-depth about their beliefs and their perspective on other people’s beliefs.

While there are many people who are less than willing to even respectfully discuss the merits of and try to understand different beliefs, dialogue seems to be the only thing that’s going to bridge the gap, so that this generation of college students still has the chance to shape a more accepting future.

Alex DiBranco is a senior at Dartmouth College studying Creative Writing and Government. She is the editor-in-chief of the progressive campus paper the Dartmouth Free Press, vice president of the Dartmouth Coalition for Progress, and just finished an internship with the progressive think tank Political Research Associates. Atheism and feminism are a couple of her favorite topics of conversation, and she hopes to work for a progressive non-profit or publication after graduation.

If your group is an affiliate of the Secular Student Alliance, chances are you’ve come across our Group Running Guide. It’s the handbook we send to anyone looking to start a group on their campus, containing a wealth of information on starting and maintaining your secular group.

So you can imagine that we’re excited to announce the new 2008 edition of our Group Running Guide!

This updated version is reorganized for ease of use, and expanded to provide additional detail, guidance and examples. We’ve brought the Technology section up to date with modern opportunities. Plus, the book is now spiral-bound for easy photocopying and durability.

Even established groups might gather an idea or two from our Group Running Guide. For newer groups or new officers, it’s an indispensable guide to handling a secular group. That’s why we keep a version online here.  Check it out today!

Shelley Mountjoy, President of the Rational Response Squad at George Mason University reports on a presentation by PZ Myers, "Science Education: Caught in the Middle in the War Between Science and Religion."

Sunsara Taylor is making the rounds at college campuses around the US.  One of her stops was at the University of Minnesota, home to the Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists.  Her presentation on Bob Avakian's book, "Away With All Gods," made the case that this book on atheism is different than any other book out there, because this book ties atheism to a political movement.

On a crisp November evening at the University of Minnesota, a surprisingly large crowd gathered in a basement auditorium to hear from Sunsara Taylor, an unapologetic Revolutionary Communist and militant atheist.  Hearing the views of a communist isn't as shocking as it may be in other arenas of the public; however, it isn't often that a communist will admit that they are also an atheist.  Sunsara Taylor is not ashamed of either her Revolutionary Communism, or her atheism, as she presented Bob Avakian's book, "Away With All Gods, Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World."

Sunsara Taylor's presentation began with a description of the horrors that wait to greet the curious reader of the Bible.  "I wouldn't give this book to young children to read," Taylor mentions, also calling the Bible, "The most blood-thirsty book."  The specifics from the Bible she mentions are the practice described of stoning women who were not virgins on their wedding night, God commanding soldiers to kill children, men, and women who have known a man, but leave the virgins for yourselves, and the series of plagues sent by God.

Citing these examples from the Old Testament of the Bible, Sunsara Taylor makes the statement that you cannot separate the New and Old Testaments, as some more progressive Christians might like to do.  Jesus is often separated from the horrors of the Old Testament, however, by what basis would you consider Jesus to the divine without fulfillment of the prophecies found within the Old Testament?  "Jesus is not someone you would want to follow or should follow,” Taylor exclaims.  "He didn't end slavery; instead he taught how slaves should be obedient to their masters.  He didn't stop patriarchy.  He continued to preach that disease and illness are caused by sin."

Taylor explores the concept of sin.  Sin is caused by the "Fall" of humanity.  Christians believe that Eve was deceived by the Devil to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and then deceived Adam.  What this means for women who inherit this original sin, is a special punishment or curse, which is painful childbirth and obedience to their husbands.   The problem with this treatment of the nature of humanity, is that it creates a society which is patriarchal and these ancient myths should not be carried on today in the modern era.

Next, Taylor ties in ancient Biblical myths with practice in society today.  She cites Proposition 8 in California, which defined marriage as one man and one woman.  Proponents of a heterosexual definition of marriage use the Bible to argue against gay marriage.  However, the Bible doesn't even treat marriage as between one man and one woman.  King Solomon, in the Bible, has hundreds of wives and hundreds of concubines.  "Sex existed long before people made up religions, and marriage is defined by societies, not by a god," Taylor reasons.

The next section Taylor dives into is all about the difference between science, religious faith, and to a lesser extent, art.  "Science is not cold and bereft of meaning," says Taylor.  The difference between art and religion is that art does not mandate that you accept it as a representation of reality.  "Humanity cannot live without art, but must live without religion," Taylor quotes from the book.

Taylor has peppered her presentation with fleeting mention of being a communist, and mentioned some of the experiences that have formed her opinion of religion, such as attempting to defend an abortion clinic from violent protesters and actually reading the Bible only to learn about the horrible treatment of women, and other violence found throughout the book.  At the end of her presentation, she attempts to tie in the rationality and reason of science and atheism and communism.

Taylor, like the books she is presenting, is not meant to be nice to religion, and not meant to take ideas lightly.  She asserts that the idea of the "Golden Rule," only works on an individual level, and not in societies.  Scarcity is no longer a problem in the world.  We have the means to provide shelter, food, and safety to every person on the planet.  We can feed the whole world, but people in food producing countries are starving because food is produced, and exported to "imperialist countries, like this one," asserts Taylor.  We need to get rid of the means of production relations that are based on exploitation and rid ourselves of class distinction.

What are the options for the individual, according to Taylor?  "Faced with the horrors of the world, you have three options," Taylor follows.  You can grab all of the goodies and possessions through a global network of exploitation, close your eyes to the exploitation or you can open your eyes and confront the oppression and change the world you live in.

Taylor does not hold back in her presentation.  During the evening she called Sarah Palin a Nazi for the practice of charging rape victims for rape kits because they contained emergency contraception.  We should not feel good about being American, no matter who is President, because we are a nation which dropped two atomic bombs on cities in Japan, have killed a million people in Iraq, and carry out secret CIA operations, such as hidden prisons.  She asserts that abstinence only sex education has genocidal implications and the Bible fuels it.  She believes that humans have no inherent nature to be good or bad, and that the problems we see today were caused by the emergence of classes, private property and the state.  In order to change the world, you must act in opposition to the oppressor in order to benefit the oppressed.

From the audience, a number of people raised concerns about the viability of a communist society, citing examples of failed attempts in the USSR and China.  Taylor lauded the successes of Maoist China in raising the life expectancy from 33 years to 65 years in a short time as the country transitioned from feudalism.  Among those who raised concern, one was an anthropologist, another an economist and another merely had concerns that humans, as animals, had a capitalist nature that is difficult to overcome.  She handled criticism of communism, which made up the majority of the discussion afterwards, very well.  As a speaker, she is confident, assertive, and concerned about understanding the point of view of the questioner.

Bob Avakian’s book, "Away With All Gods," as presented by Sunsara Taylor, is different from other atheist books, like those from Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, in that it proposes a radical political agenda as an opposition to religious fundamentalism.

Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists (CASH) presented Sunsara Taylor.  CASH is known as, "The Best Damned Group on Campus, " are an affiliate of the Secular Student Alliance and have been serving atheists, skeptics, and humanists since 1991.  For more information about CASH, visit www.cashumn.org.

 

It wasn't that long ago that there were few atheist billboards or ad campaigns around.  The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a notable exception.  After the British Humanist Association launched a highly successful fund raising effort to plaster buses in the UK with a humanist message, atheist and humanist groups in the US are getting inspired.  COCORE and the American Humanist Association are running campaigns in Colorado and Washington D.C., respectively.

Nov. 19, 2008 - The past year has been phenomenally successful for the Secular Student Alliance.  Most notably, our affiliate count has gone up by over 40%.  This report details our 2008 activities, from campus group affiliate support and a great conference to our electronic newsletter and summer internships.

 Direct Campus Group Affiliate Support

We presently have 129*campus affiliate groups in twelve countries. This time last year we had 90; at this time in 2006 we had only 65.  Our affiliates range in size from just a handful of students to groups like the Campus Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists (CASH) at the University of Minnesota, who obtain thousands of dollars a year from their student activities board, and have organized their own conferences. Regardless of size or resources, each group receives individual attention from our staff. Providing these services is the core of our work.

Affiliate Tracking and Listing

We ask all of our affiliates to update their contact information with us twice a year.  Because we do this, we are able to publish the most up-to-date list of active humanist/atheist student groups of which we are aware .  This helps campus groups connect with each other and makes them more accessible to off-campus groups in the movement and the media.

Campus Organizers

We have a full time Senior Campus Organizer (SCO), Lyz Liddell, who coordinates the delivery of services, develops new services, advises campus leaders and helps them troubleshoot problems, and maintains our relationships with our affiliates.

Our SCO also supervises our Campus Organizing Interns. These are temporary positions filled by students who work ten hours a week supporting and starting groups in their geographic region.  This spring we had Campus Organizing Interns in Northern California, Southern California, and New York City.

Media Assistance

With a subscription to Bacon’s Media Database (courtesy of the American Humanist Association) and technical assistance from the Institute for Humanist Studies’ Communications Director Duncan Crary, the Secular Student Alliance is able to send out press releases for campus events to local media markets. Over a dozen media mentions about SSA campus affiliate groups resulted—many of which we republished on our website (with permission).

Additionally, the Secular Student Alliance itself was covered in the following stories this academic year:

Atheism services on the rise at colleges – 9/21/07
The Daily Free Press – Boston, MA

Faithlessness on the rise? - 11/7/07
Brown Daily Herald – Providence, RI

Cake and controversy for Darwin's birthday – 2/12/08
Brown Daily Herald – Providence, RI

Losing Faith in Modern America – 5/7/08
New Zealand Herald – Auckland, New Zealand

 

Literature and Other Promotional Materials

We have released an updated revision of our Group Running Guide and distributed hundreds of copies to students interested in starting and running freethought groups.  This is the first major revision to the Guide in over four years.

We printed and sent custom business cards to 22 of our groups over the last school year, along with our brochures, stickers from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and literature from various humanist/atheist organizations. We also mailed our affiliate groups supplies of gel bracelets with "atheist" or "humanist" imprinted on them, and copies of the book Imagine No Superstition donated to us by its author, Dr. Stephen Uhl.

In addition to printed literature we also have a wealth of "how to" information on our website for group leaders to use to better run their groups.  This summer we posted an activity packet on how to perform a service trip . We also created The Exchange , a new section of our website which allows group leaders to post - and share with other leaders - flyers they have developed.  And our website also provides campus groups a sample constitution and resources about succession planning, building group momentum, writing a press release, and welcoming women.

Speakers Bureau

Lori Lipman Brown Director of the Secular Coalition for America and a member of the SSA Speakers Bureau

The SSA Speakers Bureau is an important service we offer to our affiliates. Students are encouraged to bring one of our bureau members to campus for a presentation, debate, or activist training session.  In this past year we helped to directly organize twenty speaking events with our affiliates, also providing $883.69 to assist groups with speaker travel expenses. 

The SSA also helps to organize tours for noted speakers at campus groups around the nation. During this past year we arranged for Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion to speak at campuses in California, Texas, and the Northeast. And in a joint effort with the Richard Dawkins Foundation and the Center for Inquiry, the SSA  played a major role in organizing Richard Dawkins' spring university tour covering New York City, Texas, Arizona, California, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  Dakwins said of the tour, "...the student involvement gave it a buzz that no previous tour has matched." We are helping to organize future Dawkins tours in the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009.

Project Grants

Project grants are given to SSA affiliates requiring funding for their groups' activities.

We budgeted $3,000 for project grants the last year and gave out $2,768.75.  We will be trying several new strategies to distribute more grant money to our affiliates over the next year.

Group Starting Packets

In addition to providing services for existing affiliates, we also provide resources to students who are trying to get affiliate groups started at their campuses.  These packets contain brochures, customized flyers, our Group Running Guide, and thumb tacks.  Additionally, we create a web page on our website specifically about the group-starting effort on each campus, a Facebook Group for the students to use to organize at that school, and a unique email forward which goes to the person starting the group in addition to Secular Student Alliance staff.  We have sent out over 129 packets in the last year; already 23 of those packet requests have resulted in new affiliate groups.

 Web Hosting

We provide technical support for the websites of seven groups that are hosted on the Institute for Humanist Studies’ server.  Most universities give student groups some kind of web space, but sometime groups want to use technologies that are not provided by these hosting environments and web space is not as frequently available at schools in developing countries.  As the Institute for Humanist Studies is ending its web hosting program at the end of 2008, we are looking into other options to continue to offer this service to our affiliates.
 

Rewarding Excellence: Secular Student Alliance 'Best' Awards

Each year at our annual conference, the Secular Student Alliance recognizes the achievements of exceptional affiliates who enrich their groups, campuses, communities, and the secular student movement through innovative programming.  This year, in an effort to provide more support to our most outstanding groups, we increased the amount of each cash award.  Winners for best Service Project, Best Website, Best Media Appearance, and Best New Affiliate received $300, up from $100 in previous years. The Best Overall Affiliate received $500 from the SSA, up from $200 in previous years. This money is to recognize each group for its success in 2007-2008 and to help it carry out even more impressive projects throughout the next academic year.

Best Service Project

This award went to the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This group’s project was to send eleven members of their group along with nineteen members of the school’s Campus Crusade for Christ group to New Orleans to carry out relief work.

Chris Calvey, a member of the group who went to New Orleans on behalf of AAF, had this to say:

"We were able to spend a lot of time interacting with Christian students from all over the country.  Many were happy, impressed, or even shocked to find out that we were atheists.  After getting to know one another, it became apparent to both sides that it’s possible to put aside our philosophical differences and work together for a greater good.  If we want to improve the images of atheism in this country, I can think of no better way to do it than by volunteering alongside those who might disagree with us.  Complaining about the misconceptions, stereotyping, and discrimination of nonbelievers is one thing we do very well…  Actually working to dispel these is another story.  I am confident that our service project will have the effect of positively shaping their opinion about atheism for the rest of their lives."

 


Best Website

We were pleased to give the award of Best Website to the UCLA Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists. Check out their award-winning work at BruinSkeptics.org .

Roy Natian, the group’s founder, had this to say about the site:

"Function, Function, Function!  The site has to be easy to use and to update.  In planning ahead for BASS’s future, I wanted to make sure that we had a solid infrastructure.  By making the site require minimal maintenance, I’m allowing future BASSiers to focus on the more important facets of running BASS, such as planning educational events.  An added benefit of having the site be easily updateable is that the site actually gets updated!"

To demonstrate this group’s ambitions, it bears mentioning that within days of winning the award, the BASS website had already posted their news, along with their goal of "working on winning the other awards!"

Best Media Appearance

The Best Media Appearance award this year went to the Guelph Skeptics at the University of Guelph in Canada. This group is the first international group to win one of our Best awards.

This group showed up in their campus newspaper once, then a second time. Then they appeared in their local city paper.  Now, and most impressively, they are hosting their own radio show in Canada!  It already airs in Guelph, Victoria, and Winnipeg.  They're working on getting the show syndicated so they can play it across North America.

Best New Affiliate

This year's Best New Affiliate award went to the University of Illinois at Chicago - Rationalists and Freethinkers (RAFT).

This group had fallen on hard times and has really turned things around. After all but collapsing, they secured new leadership, changed their mission statement, got new officers, and are now an amazing group. This past year they hosted Austin Dacey, author of The Secular Conscience;  Hemant Mehta, chair of the SSA Board of Directors and author of I Sold My Soul on eBay; and Dan Barker, former minister and co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They held an event titled "Does the Black Church really serve the Black Community” and invited the executive director of African Americans for Humanism to present on the subject.  They were mentioned in the CBS piece "The Atheist Next Door" and polled UIC students on their feelings about the presidential candidates and religion (then posted these videos and opinions on You Tube).  They declared a War on Truthiness (a term coined by Stephen Colbert which describes things that a person claims to know intuitively or "from the gut," without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination or facts).  You can sign up for their war at warontruthiness.org .  They also held several blood drives throughout the year, including those titled "Give Up Blood for Lent" and the"Vampire Feast Blood Drive" in October.

Best Overall Affiliate

The Best Overall Affiliate award went to the Tufts Secular Student Association at Tufts University in Boston.

This group has had great success not only in organizing elaborate events on their own campus, but also in seeing beyond their campus to reach out to the larger humanist community in their area.  Over the last nine months of the school year, they organized a debate with Daniel Dennett and Dinesh D’Souza in conjunction with the Harvard University group (also an SSA affiliate); they filmed the entire debate and put it up on the web. (RichardDawkins.net has a great article with links). They reached out to the community to invite professors from Harvard, Tufts, and UMass to come speak to the group on animal ethics, religion, animal testing, and evolution. The group hosted prominent philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, who spoke about secularism and Spinoza, and hosted Dan Barker for an event in the spring.  SSA Speakers Bureau member Ellery Schempp presented to their group about his historic 1963 Supreme Court case to remove school-sanctioned prayer from public schools.

The Tufts SSA also showed up in the media.  They placed articles in the school paper, and the group's president, Pat Andriola, was interviewed there.  Plus, the group's former president Nina Lee was quoted in the Boston Globe. They also have quite a sharp website.

To understand the demographics of their own campus they conducted surveys of Tufts students and found that 30% of the students described themselves as "non-religious;" they then used this statistic to promote their group to students. They also organized a "Coming Out as an Atheist" Day on April 13th.

At the Tufts CAUSE dinner, they raised the most money of any group ($1,616.00) and donated these funds to low income families affected by recent wildfires.  Further involvement in their community included participating in meet-up events with "off-campus" humanist groups in the greater Boston area.  With these and other student groups in the Boston area they co-hosted a big Darwin Day event, and they participated in the Secular Student Activism discussion panel hosted by the Greater Worcester Humanists.  They worked with the Harvard group again to arrange for an event honoring Congressman Pete Stark (the first openly Humanist and nontheistic member of the US Congress).

The 2008 Secular Student Alliance conference was held in Washington, D.C. this June in conjunction with the International Humanist and Ethical Union's 17th World Humanist Congress, the American Humanist Association's 67th Annual National Conference, and the IHEYO's 5th International Youth Conference.  Approximately 510 people participated in the conference; of those, 80 were students.

Hemant on the hill!

We provided five activist training sessions at the conference and hosted a discussion panel titled "Making the Case for the New Enlightenment: what are the best ways to get people to value scientific inquiry, naturalism, democracy, secularism, and human based ethics?"

As with the year before, the Roxbury Foundation gave us $5,000 in funding towards student travel grants, which we made available to all SSA student members.  We also gained 38 members who had learned about us via the conference.

A handful of the students who attended the conference were able to stick around on the Monday afterward to participate in the Lobby Day organized by the Secular Coalition for America.  These students met personally with their legislators on Capitol Hill to share their views on proselytism in the military and other issues of concern to secularists. 

We publish a monthly electronic newsletter called the eMpirical.  The eMpirical is a vehicle for campus groups to share information and opinions with each other and the larger freethought community. The best way to get a feel for the eMpirical is to look at the most recent issue: http://www.secularstudents.org/enews We invite you to subscribe, if you have not already done so. 

Thanks to the office space made available to the SSA by the Institute for Humanist Studies, we have been able to employ summer interns for the last two years.  In the first summer we had only one full-time intern, but in the summer of 2008 we had three. All of these interns were undergraduate students who were paid a stipend of $200 a week for ten weeks.

This year our interns worked on improving our Group Running Guide, creating a brochure about discrimination against nontheists, reorganizing our Speakers Bureau, making the resources of the Richard Dawkins Foundation more useful to campus groups, improving our resources for groups on small campuses, improving our website, writing content for our newsletter, and more.

In addition to making SSA resources better, the summer internships provide an excellent way for talented young nontheists to learn more about how national nonprofits work to advance our shared values.  Two of the summer interns were able to participate in the Secular Coalition for America Lobby Day mentioned above.

Internship applications for the summer of 2009 will be posted on our website in the spring.

 *Our December 2008 semi-annual group audit reveled that we had 129 active groups.  When this report was initially released, we had 156 active groups in our records.  We stress succession planning as a key part of running a student group, but affiliate groups still close up ever year.  All the same, 129 is still over 40% growth in one year, and we're very happy about it.