It's time for the Secular Student Alliance's Spring 2010 Affiliation Renewal! This is the semiannual survey which we administer to all our student groups in order to make sure you're still alive, see what you've been up to, and find out how we have (or haven't) been able to help.

Every SSA affiliate group is required to complete the Affiliation Renewal in order to remain affiliated with the SSA. (Even if you just affiliated last week!) If I do not receive a renewal form from your group, I will be contacting you to find out what happened! But you can save us both the game of phone tag if you just take the time this week to complete the form.

Your group can win a $50 EvolveFISH gift certificate if you complete your Affiliation Renewal by 11:59pm on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010. On Wednesday morning, we'll hold a drawing from the eligible groups to see who wins each of our two $50 gift certificates for the popular EvolveFISH.com store.

If your group is no longer active, you do not need to complete the affiliation renewal. Please reply to this email and let me know your school, group name, and (if possible) any reasons that your group is no longer active. Knowing why our groups stop being active can help us better support our affiliates in the future.

Be prepared. The spring Affiliation Renewal is longer than the one you filled out last fall. We highly recommend that before you get started on the real form, you take a look at the Affiliation Renewal Preview in order to gather the information you'll need. There is no way to save the form midway, so you'll want to allow 5-10 minutes to complete the form and have your information ready when you start.

Don't work too hard. We only need one renewal form per group, but this email goes out to all our listed group leaders and advisors. Be sure you talk with your other officers to make sure you aren't filling out the form multiple times.

If you have any questions about the Affiliation Renewal, please feel free to contact me! I would far prefer to answer your questions than have to chase you down because I didn't hear from you.

Renew Your Affiliation Today!
https://secularstudents.wufoo.com/forms/ssa-spring-2010-affiliation-renewal/

by Jason Cooperrider

This past February, I had the pleasure of attending the Secular Student Alliance's Northern California Leadership Summit at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. It was my honor to represent SHIFT (Secular Humanism, Inquiry and Freethought), the secular student group at the University of Utah, as its president and co-founder.

Though I had heard about the leadership summit for several weeks before it occurred, I had not planned to attend, due to prior commitments I had made to my graduate program for the same weekend. However, after receiving a personal invitation from Lyz Liddell, who said she would really like to have representation there from our group, I decided that we must have a presence there, so that our group might benefit from the knowledge and ideas that would certainly be provided at the conference. Because no one else in our group was able to attend, I decided to petition my graduate program to allow me to shirk my duties in order to attend the conference, and I am very glad I did.

Austin Dacey delivers the keynote address "A Secular Calling" in the Memorial Church at Stanford University.

This was my first national event for the secular movement and it was a very rewarding experience. There was not a single talk given throughout the conference that I thought was boring or worthless. To the contrary, I found them all to be very entertaining and beneficial, such that I was able to derive some amusement and wisdom from each and every one. There were some great talks by leading national figures of the secular movement, such as Sean Faircloth from the Secular Coalition for America and Dr. Austin Dacey formerly of the United Nations. I was also highly impressed by the caliber of talks given by the student attendees, most of whom are undergraduate students.

The conference was filled with a spirit of cooperation and friendship, such that I felt comfortable with and greatly enjoyed talking with everyone present.

Students and speakers at the Northern California Leadership Summit pose for a group photo in front of the Rodin sculpture "Gates of Hell."

A beloved freethinking activist, and member of the Secular Student Alliance, passed away on February 17 ^th, 2010 after a long battle with cancer. Helen worked as a physician in Cincinnati, OH for over thirty years.

I had the pleasure and honor of knowing Helen for just shy of eleven years. The joy, intensity, and brilliance with which she lived her life are totally impossible to capture in words. At Camp Quest Ohio, most of the kids and younger counselors played this vigorous, no-holds-barred version of keep away in the pool with a ball. There was no leader, no ref, no written rules, no score keeping. It just came together organically, summer after summer. With a small handful of exceptions, only the youngest staffers played with any regularity. Well into her seventies, Helen could be counted on to play every time her and the ball were in the pool at the same time.

Helen was a long time member and supporter of the Secular Student Alliance. The last time I saw her was at our 2009 conference on the campus of Ohio State University.

In humanist and atheist circles, Helen is best known for starting Camp Quest with her husband Edwin Kagin in 1996. Edwin and Helen were jointly named "Atheist of the Year" by American Atheists in 2005 for their work starting and running Camp Quest. Helen was the registrar and quartermaster of the Ohio camp until she retired from Camp Quest in 2005.

Memorial gifts can be given to the Helen Kagin Memorial Campership Fund of Camp Quest Inc. by mailing them to Camp Quest Inc., P.O. Box 2552, Columbus, OH 43216, with the notation "Kagin Fund." Donations may also be made on the Camp Quest Web site, www.camp-quest.org.

A trouble-maker (in the most noble sense of that word) to the end, Helen manged to upset the Creation Museum even with her obituary. Her obituary mentioned her work in organizing the Rally for Reason that protested the opening of the Creation Museum.

In addition to the pool game, the thing that may stay with me the most about Helen, is my memory of her leading us singing the Phil Ochs song "When I'm Gone".


Part of it goes...
"And I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone
And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone
Can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here"

Helen did.

Friday, February 12th, 2010 was the 201st Anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Commonly called "Darwin Day," it is a great chance for our community to gather to celebrate humanity and science.

At George Mason University, the Office of Student Activities will approve funding for food at only one event per year. What would be more appropriate for a non-religious group than a Flying Spaghetti Monster Pasta Dinner? So, I filled out the necessary paperwork so that our group, the Secular Student Alliance (GMU), could host a pasta dinner. Another leader in our group made arrangements for a speaker, and our group planned to celebrate Darwin Day with what would have been a fabulous pasta dinner and awesome guest lecture.

The weather had different plans, though. Snowmageddon '10 hit and our pasta extravaganza became 15 pizzas. The dinner was scheduled for Friday and inclement weather had closed the school Monday through Thursday.

In the end, everything worked out. Our speaker was still able to make it and the people who did come enjoyed the event. Nevertheless, as president of the Secular Student Alliance (GMU), I was left thinking about two questions:

1. Are we becoming too "religious" in our rituals to honor his noodly appendage?

As a result of a week of closures there was no time for campus catering to prepare the dinner we had planned. Nevertheless, Student Activities went out of their way to help provide some food that evening-specifically Papa John's Pizza.

I notified those signed up on Facebook and Meetup that we would have food-just not the pasta planned-so that they wouldn't be disappointed when they arrived. Ironically, pizza is actually more popular than pasta, and, had we marketed this event as a pizza dinner, the student turnout likely would have been higher.

The pasta dinner would have been fully catered. With the changes came increased paperwork and the need for me to buy soda and paper products, and set up. While I was busy running last minute errands a debate emerged.The pasta dinner would have been fully catered. With the changes came increased paperwork and the need for me to buy soda and paper products, and set up. While I was busy running last minute errands a debate emerged.

I was happy with the accommodations, but to some, the lack of pasta was extremely disappointing. One of our student leaders wanted to push for pasta and in the end purchased pasta with personal funds. Most of it remained uneaten.

I understand the connection between the Flying Spaghetti Monster and pasta dinner. It would have been nice to have pasta, but it's more logical, in my mind, to do what is practical. So, is this an issue? Do we need to celebrate the FSM with pasta? Should we have fought for pasta like other students fight for accommodations for their religious beliefs? If so, it sounds like dogma to me. The FSM is not a real religion and therefore we should be able to adjust our rituals as necessary.

2. Should an event be canceled, or rescheduled, in consideration of inclement weather cancellations earlier in the week?

We still had the guest speaker-Tim Farley from whatstheharm.net-although we were significantly delayed in getting him to campus with heavy traffic on recently plowed streets. The turnout was less than half of what we expected.

Student and community members who were off campus had no intention of coming on campus for a free meal when they had been home all week and were coming up on the weekend. Students who were on campus didn't get exposure to the advertising we would have normally done. We had intended to have a kiosk in a major building on campus. However, that building, and in many others we had hung flyers in, were closed all week.

If we rescheduled, we would have had to find a new speaker since the 2/12 date corresponded with Tim's travel plans. Regardless, I feel we should have postponed the dinner.

A major part of holding an event is to build recognition of the student group. Even people who cannot attend see that there is a party with free food, a great speaker, and-most importantly-there is a Secular Student Alliance group on campus! This didn't happen. A few of our existing members did bring along friends, but new faces were largely absent from the event.

Also, at the end of the day I was left holding the ball. There was no one to toss the ball to because no one was anticipating drastic last minute changes. Should one student leader struggle with paperwork, a bulk pizza order, a trip to the grocery store, and room set up by herself on the day of the event? For a student leader in a wheelchair, such as myself, this was next to impossible. I'm amazed that it all came together. Although even for an able-bodied student leader I still would have recommended rescheduling the event. This is too much work for one student to carry-especially in one day.

What is the best course of action for a student group whose event is affected by inclement weather? In our situation, just because campus had finally reopened after a week of closures it didn't mean that we needed to go through with the event as planned. I wrote this article because many of us feel the need to continue with plans despite the changes and to focus on the positive rather than contemplate the negative. Sometimes our expectation to follow through despite bumps in the road becomes an obligation to charge on regardless of obstacles. This doesn't have to be the only option.

Shelley Mountjoy is a graduate student at the George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. She is the founder and president of the Secular Student Alliance (GMU), the vice president of the Graduate and Professional Student Association ( GAPSA) and a board member of the Secular Student Alliance. She lives in Central Virginia with her cat, Sarah.

On Saturday, November 7, 2009, Secular Humanism, Inquiry and Freethought ( SHIFT) at the University of Utah, celebrated what would have been the 75 ^th birthday of Carl Sagan, famed astronomer, skeptic, activist, and writer. Sagan was born on November 9, 1934 and was lost to the world on December 20, 1996. During his 62 years on our planet, Sagan inspired many people and had a significant impact on our world. He was a brilliant scientist, primarily in the field of planetary astrophysics, and had an uncanny talent for explaining scientific ideas to and popularizing science for the general public. He did this through his books, interviews, talks, and popular television series, Cosmos. In 1980, Sagan co-founded The Planetary Society, which continues its original mission of promoting space science, travel, and colonization. He was also one of the pioneering (and lifelong) proponents of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence ( SETI).

Physics professor John Belz talking about Carl Sagan's areas of research.

After receiving the suggestion in a mass email from the Center for Inquiry to celebrate Carl Sagan Day, the leaders of SHIFT decided that Carl Sagan is certainly worth honoring. Like SHIFT, Sagan's goal was to proclaim the greatness of science and reason so everyone might have a better understanding of the amazing universe we inhabit. He sought meaning in life through an understanding of the universe itself, not in the faith and dogma preached by religions. Sagan championed science and reason in both his fiction and nonfiction works. His authored and coauthored books include The Demon-Haunted World, Pale Blue Dot, Cosmos, Billions and Billions, Contact, and his Pulitzer-winning The Dragons of Eden, just to name a few.

SHIFT celebrated Carl Sagan Day with astronomy-themed food, such as Starburst fruit chews, Milky Way bars, and Sunkist fruit snacks, along with flying saucer-shaped pita bread to dip in hummus. After refreshments, SHIFT screened Contact, the film based on Sagan's novel (Sagan and his wife also wrote the outline for the film adaptation).

Contact follows a brilliant SETI researcher, Ellie Arroway, who discovers a signal from somewhere near the star Vega, which is 26 light years from Earth. The signal is a retransmission of the first television signal strong enough to travel beyond Earth's atmosphere: Adolf Hitler's opening speech at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Within that signal, however, is embedded a prime number sequence to demonstrate intelligence via the understanding of mathematics, the universal language, and the three-dimensional designs for what seems to be a device that will allow advanced human space travel for one occupant at a time. After overcoming persecution for her lack of theistic beliefs, Ellie is eventually selected to be the representative from Earth to use the device to travel to those who had sent the signal. Her journey is successful, but very few people believe her claims about meeting the aliens because she was only gone for a fraction of a second in Earth time. She seemed to have gone nowhere at all and had no empirical evidence for her journey to prove what she had experienced. The movie contains many important messages about the nature of faith and the importance of science and reason.

To conclude the event, John Belz, PhD, from the University of Utah Department of Physics and Astronomy, gave a presentation on the life, science, and beliefs of Carl Sagan, and described how Sagan influenced him to become a scientist. Belz told us that, until he, as a child, first saw Sagan on the television show Cosmos, he thought that scientists were all rich people doing neat experiments and research funded by their own money. However, after hearing Sagan talk about the wonders of science, he decided that he would become a scientist himself, specifically, an astrophysicist like Sagan. So, it is largely thanks to Sagan that Belz became the scientist he is today, researching cosmic rays via the University of Utah's High Resolution Fly's Eye cosmic ray observatory. Belz's presentation was very interesting, especially when he was discussing some of the ways that Sagan, despite tirelessly promoting science and reason, was himself somewhat of a "mystic and spiritualist." Sagan derived his "spirituality" from the glories of the universe itself and the patterns it contained, rather than from belief in a supreme being.

SHIFT president Jason Cooperrider (far right foreground) sitting with the audience during Belz's presentation.

SHIFT intends to continue celebrating Carl Sagan Day in the future and hopes that many more secular groups and individuals will do so as well. Carl Sagan was a treasure to all of humanity, so he deserves to be honored and remembered as such.

Jason Cooperrider, president and co-founder of SHIFT, holds a BS in neuroscience and a BS in psychology from The Ohio State University. He is pursuing a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Utah.

by Samantha Snyder

Sami Snyder, Fall 2009 Secular Student Alliance intern

It's in a dungeon. That was my first thought as I timidly made my way through the basement of an office building, searching for the headquarters of the Secular Student Alliance. I knew I was in the right place when I saw the dry erase board with a picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster saying "Howdy!" I was just starting my internship at the Secular Student Alliance for the 2009 Autumn quarter. It was to be a very unique experience: I met a lot of new people, felt like I made a difference helping nontheistic student groups, learned excellent professional skills, and tasted just how amazing Graeter's ice cream is.

Most of my tasks involved updating the Secular Student Alliance website. Some of the projects I helped with included updating affiliates' information, editing and creating pages for speakers and groups, and contacting groups about events happening in their areas. Perhaps my favorite task was editing the Facebook page for the Secular Student Alliance. I added and organized photos, installed useful applications, synched events to the Secular Student Alliance Google Calendar, and many of the same things people love to do on their own Facebook pages. Upkeep on the Internet resources is extremely important. It's the fastest way to acquire information and its networking ability is unsurpassable.

This internship was important to me because students are the next generation in the nontheistic movement, and we have a lot of untapped resources. Many young adult skeptics out there don't even know that groups and organizations such as the Secular Student Alliance exist. During my internship, I learned about outreach techniques and how to keeping a group alive and active. After my internship, my main goal as a student is to let other nontheists know they aren't alone. The Secular Student Alliance gave me the skills and information to help me achieve my goal.

Working with the Secular Student Alliance is definitely an ideal internship for a nontheistic student activist. Not only does the Secular Student Alliance lend its own support, it also provides information about many other organizations that are more than willing to help out student groups. The people I met and the friends I made are absolutely priceless. The experiences I take away from these three months have made me a better leader and community member.

This story originally appeared in The Gateway, the official student newspaper at the University of Alberta, on 2/2/2010 , and is used by permission. Article by Dan McKechnie.

CALL TO RATIONALITY
Pigliucci argues on the Horowitz stage last Thursday. Photo by Dan McKechnie