Secular Student Alliance: Atheists, Humanists, Agnostics & Others - Conferences

A Harvard Student's Experience at the Secular Student Alliance Conference

1-September-2008

As an officer for the Harvard Secular Society, I had the opportunity in June to attend a major humanist conference in Washington, DC, thanks to some generous funding from the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and the Secular Student Alliance (SSA).

This conference was held jointly by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), the American Humanist Association (AHA), and the SSA. The IHEU is an organization that includes Humanist, rationalist, secular, atheist, and other non-theist groups from all over the world. The AHA is a domestic organization that aims to promote the ideals of humanism, and the SSA seeks to mobilize young people to become activists for secular causes. The other Harvard attendees were Kelly Bodwin, an undergraduate; Jon Figdor and Sebastian Velez, graduate students; and Greg Epstein, the Humanist chaplain.

2008 AAI “Unsinkable Atheism” Convention! Early Bird Registration Rates Expire August 31, 2008

16-August-2008

If you have not yet made your reservations for AAI’s 2008 Convention, act now before “Early Bird Registration Rates” expire in only two days. Convention rates are going up after August 31^st!

Register now to make sure that you don’t miss this chance to save money on your and to reserve your place at another memorable AAI convention.

Lori Lipman Brown Receives SSA Freethought Backbone Award

3-July-2008

The Secular Student Alliance’s Freethought Backbone Award is an award presented to an individual within the freethought movement who is a guide or inspiration for students and student groups. In the past it has gone to such notable figures as Larry Jones, founder of IHS, and Herb Silverman, president and founder of the Secular Coalition for America. This year, at the 2008 SSA Conference in Washington, D.C., the Freethought Backbone Award was presented to Lori Lipman Brown.

Secular Student Alliance 2008 Best Awards

2-July-2008

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!

The Blogging of a Secular Lobbyist

17-May-2008

Lori Lipman Brown is Director of the Secular Coalition for America, where she serves as the first Congressional lobbyist representing atheists. She is also a speaker on the SSA's Speaker's Bureau. She writes a weekly blog for The Humanist; we reprint select articles with permission.

Richard Dawkins in Madison, WI

29-March-2008

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.

Richard Dawkins is on a speaking tour to promote the paperback release of The God Delusion, sponsored in part by the Secular Student Alliance. On March 11th, Mr. Dawkins was in Madison, WI and I only had to drive five hours to see him. I arrived in Madison early to take Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Debbie Goddard from the Center for Inquiry to lunch. Upon my arrival, I was informed that Mr. Dawkins would also be joining us.

Important Dates to Save: Dawkins Tour and Secular Student Alliance Conference

29-January-2008

Details are still coming together, but we wanted to give eMpirical readers a heads-up about some upcoming events.

Richard Dawkins U.S. Tour

Richard Dawkins is doing a U.S. tour this March to promote the paperback version of The God Delusion. Details are still coming together, but we have some cities and dates below. We will post a more detailed itinerary as we get it.

Dawkins Tour Dates:

March 6th, 2008 - Phoenix, Arizona
March 9th, 2008 - San Francisco, California
March 11th, 2008 - Madison, Wisconsin
March 13th, 2008 - New York, New York
March 18th or 19th, 2008 - Austin, Texas
March 21st-23rd, 2008 - Minneapolis, Minnesota

Interview with Student Activist Matt LaClair

12-December-2007

At the Freedom From Religion Founation’s 2007 conference, we got the chance to sit down and chat with FFRF award recipient Matt LaClair. You can read about Matt’s struggle to get religion and preaching out of his school here and here. SSA eMpirical Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth R.A. Liddell conducts this interview.

You talked about getting pushback from teachers and students. Was that a constant active pressure every day, or more of a passive resistance?

Student's Fight Against Preaching Teacher: Part 2

12-December-2007

Matthew LaClair is a senior at Kearny High School in Kearny, NJ. His work to keep religion out of his school was covered in the New York Times and the Village Voice, among others. His work has earned him several awards, including the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Thomas Jefferson Student Activist Award. Here, he tells his story to the SSA. This is the second part; you can read the first part here.

SSA eMpirical No. 24 - The Freedom From Religion Foundation Conference...and After

20-October-2007

Secular Student eMpirical

10/31/2007

In this issue:

Christopher Hitchens: A Conference Controversy

18-October-2007

At the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s 2007 conference in Madison, WI, Christopher Hitchens was awarded the group’s “The Emperor Has No Clothes” award. Since 1999, this award has been given annually to celebrate a public figure’s “plain speaking” on the shortcomings of religion. Well known for his atheism and antitheism, and currently on tour for his most recent book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Hitchens is a well-deserving candidate for the award.

Humanists Without Borders at Nigerian Conference

11-September-2007

Armed guards and military checkpoints? In Port Harcourt, Nigeria, the Humanists Without Borders (HWB) was one group among many navigating these obstacles to attend the Nigeria Humanist Movement's 2007 Annual Convention. The conference took place on the 24th and 25th of August at the Students' Viewing Centre of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology.

The conferences themes were "Discovering the Power of Humanism" and "Witchcraft and Superstition in Nigeria." In attendance were representatives from the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, River State College of Education, University of Port Harcourt, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State, Universal College of Technology, Osun State, Benue State University, Makurdi, Unversity of Calabar, Cross River State, and the University of Benin (Edo State).

The New Humanism: E.O. Wilson and the Evangelicals

14-August-2007

How, and why, did a self-described "uncompromising secular humanist" find himself greeted with open arms by evangelical friends and allies at Samford University, "the Ivy League of the Southern Baptist Conference," in Birmingham, Alabama? Edward O. Wilson - biologist, environmentalist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and humanist - delivered a presentation about the "New Atheism," the "New Humanism," and friends in unlikely places at the 2007 joint conference of the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and the Secular Student Alliance, The New Humanism.

Professor E.O Wilson and SSA board member Joe Foley at The New Humanism conference at Harvard University.

Did Atheism Imitate Religion at the New Humanism Conference?

17-July-2007

Take organized atheism and humanism. Mix in some of the powerful elements of religion - buildings, ceremonies, beneditions, and singing. How close can the two get while remaining true to themselves? August Brunsman, executive director of the SSA, writes these thoughts on the subject.

Note Added by Author After Publication: I want to make it clear that my goal here is to start a conversation about borrowing from religious forms, not to diminish the overall fantastic New Humanism conference. For more on this, see my comments in the comments thread.

The New Humanism: Humanist Leadership Education

13-June-2007

This article originally appeared in the SSA eMpirical No. 20 - June 2007.

SSA Executive Director August Brunsman reports on a meeting at the New Humanism conference in April. Leaders from fifteen humanist organizations met to discuss the future of educating leaders for the humanist movement. Here, August discusses the meeting, its goals, and what may be in store for the humanist movement.