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ArticlesSecular Student Alliance 2008 Best AwardsSubmitted by Lyz on Fri, 2008-07-04 05:10.
At the 2008 SSA Conference in Washington, D.C., we were happy to award the 2008 SSA Best Awards. Field Director Alison Bates presented the awards with these remarks.In the past year the Secular Student Alliance has gone from 80 campus groups to 137 active affiliate groups! That's a growth of 71%. We've had more impressive groups doing impressive work on campus around the world this past year than we've had in any year before. It certainly wasn't easy picking only five groups to be awarded a Best Award! This year, in an effort to provide more support to our most outstanding groups, we’ve increased the amount of money that the winners of the awards receive. Winners for best Service Project, Best Website, Best Media Appearance, and Best New Affiliate will receive $300, up from $100 in previous years. The Best Overall Affiliate will receive $500 from the SSA. This money is to recognize your group for their success this past year, and also to help you carry out further impressive projects throughout the next academic year. Best Service Project Congratulations to the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a great service project! 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. ![]() Members of UIUC's award-winning group: Aaron Aves, Franklin Kramer, Peter Ho, Ryan James, Heather Hanks, Ashley Carter, and Claire Wright. Best Website We’re 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 his 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!
Rational Response Squad: Kelly's BlogSubmitted by Lyz on Sun, 2008-05-18 21:59.
May 17 - If Sex Is a Drug, What Isn't? Internship Opportunity with the Society for Humanistic JudaismSubmitted by Lyz on Sun, 2008-05-18 21:42.
The Society for Humanistic Judaism is looking for a summer intern to fill a project-based contract position. The project entails compiling a manual for university Humanistic havurot programs explaining Humanistic Judaism and including at minimum the following components: In Reason We Trust?Submitted by Lyz on Sat, 2008-05-17 22:23.
This story originally appeared in The Daily Cardinal (the campus newspaper of the University of Wisconsin at Madison) on 04/03/08, and is used by permission. Between the religious right and violence in the name of religion, do atheists on campus have a prayer? As an organizing member of AHA, the UW-Madison organization for Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics, Nick Jikomes hears arguments against atheism all the time. One of the most common is that atheism requires belief and is therefore a religion. Jikomes, however, has an answer. The Blogging of a Secular LobbyistSubmitted by Lyz on Fri, 2008-04-04 01:00.
Rational Response Squad: Kelly's BlogSubmitted by Lyz on Thu, 2008-04-03 23:12.
March 12 - Vox Day - "There is no god. Because I'm an asshole." Richard Dawkins in Madison, WISubmitted by Lyz on Sat, 2008-03-29 19:34.
Phil Ferguson is one of the newest members of the Secular Student Alliance's Board of Directors. On March 11, he saw Richard Dawkins speak in Madison, Wisconsin.
Darwin Day Celebrations at UTASubmitted by Lyz on Fri, 2008-03-28 15:53.
Secular Student Alliance Board Secretary Becky Robinson leads the Freethinkers of the University of Texas at Arlington. Here, she writes about her group's exciting and successful events on Darwin Day this year.As we did last year, the Freethinkers of the University of Texas at Arlington planned an all-day Darwin Day event on February 12th, the 199th birthday of Charles Darwin. We hoped to spread awareness of science and education, mixed in with some political activism and good old celebration with birthday cake! Campus Organizer Update: Neil Polzin, Southern CaliforniaSubmitted by Lyz on Thu, 2008-02-28 20:32.
Every month, our Southern California Campus Organizer Neil Polzin writes an update describing what he and the groups in his area have been up to. February 25, 2008 – Charging Onward We are charging at the new year, along with it's new challenges. Now, going into March, even the last of the community colleges have returned from break, meaning school is back into full swing here in Southern California. Humanists Promote Science-based Legislation on Darwin's BirthdaySubmitted by Lyz on Wed, 2008-02-27 21:27.
On Feb. 12, 2008, the Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS), hosted the first ever Humanist Legislative Advocacy Day. Humanist activists in New York state came to Albany to persuade their elected representatives to support such issues as: access to emergency contraceptives; same sex marriage legislation; comprehensive sex education in the schools; and expanding therapeutic embryonic stem cell research. "Today, you've made history, the largest minority group never to be counted was heard," said Matt Cherry, at an afternoon press conference in the Legislative Office Building. |
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