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

This Week: Spring 2010 Affiliation Renewal

27-February-2010

This Week:
Spring Affiliation Renewal

Renew Your Group's Affiliation with the Secular Student Alliance

New Leader?
No Longer a Leader?
Let us Know!

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.

Secular Student Alliance Events Calendar

29-September-2008

Our affiliate groups hold dozens – if not hundreds – of events every semester. Most of these events are open to the public, and often feature speakers, debates, or other fun and interesting material. We've created a special calendar to list those events that are especially exciting and interesting to the secular student.

(If the embedded calendar doesn't appear, click here to visit our Google Calendar: http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/secularstudents.org/render)

Review: SSA's 2010 Northern California Leadership Summit

28-February-2010

Jason Cooperrider, president of SHIFT at the University of Utah

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.

Secular Student Alliance New England Leadership Summit

3-February-2010

The Secular Student Alliance is proud to announce its New England Leadership Summit, to be held April 16-18, 2010. The summit will be hosted at Harvard University in Boston, MA. This weekend session is a great opportunity for student leaders to fine-tune their group-running skills, meet other leaders from the area, network with local off-campus organizations, and have a great time!

We're excited to be holding this event in conjunction with the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy's award ceremony for the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism, being presented this year to the MythBusters. Join us for the award ceremony at a special discounted rate of only $8 when you register through the New England Leadership Summit.

Get Information On:
          Registration
          Housing
          Travel Grants
          Program & Schedule
          MythBusters on Humanism
          Advertising

Registration

Secular Student Alliance offers student registration & travel grants for 2010 American Atheists' convention

30-January-2010

UPDATE: The deadline for travel grants has passed.

The Secular Student Alliance is proud to be partnering with American Atheists by providing student registration for their 2010 convention in Newark, New Jersey April 2-4th, 2010.

Student registration is $75 for full-time students who are members of the Secular Student Alliance ($10/year). Join now! This is different from being a member of a Secular Student Alliance affiliate group. Register now!

Secular Student Alliance Announces New England Leadership Summit

27-January-2010

The Secular Student Alliance is excited to announce the dates and location for the 2010 New England Leadership Summit! We'll be gathering for this three-day event at Harvard University from April 16-18, 2010!

The SSA Leadership Summits are a gathering of student leaders, active volunteers, and off-campus supporters from an entire region. Events include inspiring keynote presentations, training sessions from leaders of the freethought movement, how-to presentations from your fellow student leaders, and hands-on best practices from SSA staff. It's a great opportunity to network with student leaders in your area and get some face time with the SSA staff.

Should Humanists Deliver Invocations? "Yes," says Andrew Lovley

13-January-2010

by Andrew Lovley

Some secularists are calling for an end to the custom of having invocations delivered at the beginning of public meetings and ceremonies. An invocation is often understood to mean calling upon a higher power, and in the context of religion this involves soliciting the mercy and guidance of a deity. The main concern secularists have with invocations is that they are a violation of the separation of church and state, which is a worthy criticism when an invocation includes invoking a particular deity and a request for the audience to join in prayer. However, an invocation does not necessarily need to invoke a higher power in order to be effective and connective for those in attendance.

PZ Myers Northern California Tour

8-January-2010

The Secular Student Alliance is proud to announce the PZ Myers Northern California Tour from January 20-28, 2010. The infamous author of Pharyngula will be speaking at venues from Santa Barbara to Sacramento and in between.

Check out the tour schedule below and mark the date on your calendar!

January 20, Santa Barbara, CA
     Hosted by Scientific Understanding and Reason Enrichment (SURE) at UC Santa Barbara.
     7:00-9:00 pm, Embarcadero Hall. Admission is free but seating is first-come, first-seated.
     Find more details on Facebook

January 21, Davis, CA
     Hosted by the Agnostic and Atheist Student Association (AgASA) at UC Davis.
     6:30 - 9:30 pm, 194 Chemistry. Admission is free and open to the public.
     Find more details on Facebook

Secular Charities for Haitian Relief Efforts

8-January-2010

Haitian civilians receive assistance in a camp set up by the Brazilian Army in Port-au-Prince,
in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake.

On January 12, 2010, a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the impoverished nation of Haiti less than 20 miles from the nation's capital. The disaster, combined with Haiti's high population density, crumbling architecture, and widespread poverty, has created a tragedy in which death tolls may top 100,000. Over three million people have been affected by the quake. The infrastructure of the area has been devastated, and many skilled workers (including health care providers) who could help with recovery are missing or dead. Haiti is in urgent need of assistance in this crisis.

Many of us want to reach out to help those who are suffering in the wake of this disaster. But as secularists, we are wary of those organizations that would include proselytization in their relief efforts.

The American Humanist Association's Humanist Charities has set up a fund specifically for Haitian disaster relief. Harvard University evolutionary biologist Sebastian Velez has been working with the Children of the Border project, which has been working to help Haitian immigrants since mid-2008, and is serving as the point-of-contact to help the Humanist Charities accomplish real results in Haiti.

The Skeptics and Humanist Aid and Relief Effort (SHARE), a project under the CFI umbrella, has created a relief fund to benefit Doctors without Borders, which lost all three of its Haitian medical facilities in the earthquake. At this time, all donations to SHARE, 100% with no operating costs retained, will be sent directly to Doctors without Borders.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has launched Non-Believers Giving Aid, a secular charitable organization. The Dawkins Foundation is covering all of the operating costs for this program, so everything you give will be passed on to direct relief organizations.

In addition, the Foundation Beyond Belief has recommended several organizations that have received high ratings from Charity Navigator and take a secular approach to their charitable work. We are reposting their list here so that Secular Student Alliance members, supporters and friends are able to find organizations through which they can support Haitian relief efforts. The links will take you to the Charity Navigator page for that organization, where you can find more information and make a donation.

Foundation Beyond Belief writes: "MADRE is a small organization with a high efficiency rating and a good track record in disaster relief that does not mix worldview with its charity. ActionAid International is an outstanding organization that is efficient, non-sectarian, and works with a small budget. International Relief Teams, AmeriCares, Doctors Without Borders, and Partners in Health all receive high ratings for the secular charitable work they do."

Student Registration for American Atheists Convention Coming Soon(ish)

4-January-2010

The Secular Student Alliance will be running registration for the 2010 American Atheists Convention. The convention will be April 2nd-4th and be held at the Renaissance Newark Airport Hotel. The student registration page should go live by February.

Call for Proposals: "Deconstructing the Gods: Towards a Post-Religious Criticism"

3-January-2010

The Third Annual Brooklyn College Graduate English Conference will be held April 10, 2009, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY. The topic is "Deconstructing the Gods: Towards a Post-Religious Criticism," and proposals are being accepted now through January 31, 2010. Details about the conference, topics, and submission guidelines are below.

If one were asked to provide a single explanation for the growth of English studies in the later nineteenth century, one could do worse than reply, 'the failure of religion.' -- Terry Eagleton

Literature would begin wherever one no longer knows who writes and who signs the narrative of the call - and of the "Here I Am"- between the absolute Father and Son. -- Derrida

Secular Student Alliance Northern California Regional Leadership Summit: Stanford University

8-November-2009

The Secular Student Alliance is proud to announce its first-ever Regional Leadership Summit, to be held Feb. 12-14, 2010. The summit will be hosted by the Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics (AHA!) at Stanford University in Stanford, CA. This weekend session is a great opportunity for student leaders to fine-tune their group-running skills, meet other leaders from the area, network with local off-campus organizations, and have a great time!

Get Information On:
          Registration
          Housing
          Travel Grants
          Program & Schedule
          Keynote Presentation *NEW*
          Getting to Stanford
          Advertising

October is Sex-Ed Action Month!

20-September-2009

The Secular Student Alliance
Sex Ed Month of Action

Coming Soon:

October 18: National Secular Service Day
Fall Affiliation Renewal
SSA Student Membership Drive

New Leader?
No Longer a Leader?
Click Here and Let us Know!

Support the SSA

Under the Bush administration, school districts received federal money for promoting theologically-based, ineffective "abstinence-only" sex education rather than medically accurate education. The Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act intends to counter this by providing federal funding to support responsible, comprehensive sex education in schools. This education would include age-appropriate, science-based, and medically accurate information about both abstinence and contraception. Currently, there are no dedicated federal funds allocated for comprehensive sex education in schools.

Advocates for Youth has partnered with Choice USA, Law Students for Reproductive Justice, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, Sierra Club and Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom to make October a nation-wide Sex-Ed Month of Action. The Secular Student Alliance is cooperating with Advocates for Youth to help promote the Sex-Ed Month of Action.

We encourage our affiliate groups to get involved and hold an event to take action on sex education!

Release: Secular Student Alliance Reports Record Numbers of Atheist, Agnostic Students Organizing on Campus

2-September-2009

Columbus, OH - College students who consider themselves non-religious or doubting will return to campus this fall with a better chance than ever of finding or starting groups of like-minded young people, according to the Secular Student Alliance (SSA), the national umbrella organization for the secular student movement. The SSA's Labor Day 2009 count of campus affiliate groups is 159, up from 100 in 2008 and 80 in 2007.

“It’s been a challenge to keep up with the demand for services, especially group-starting packets and follow-up,” said Lyz Liddell, senior campus organizer. “That’s a nice problem to have.”

Cederdahl Wins Prestigious American Atheists Scholarship

16-August-2009

Andrew Cederdahl poses with a monkey.

by Leslie A. Zukor

Congratulations to Andrew Cederdahl, a third-year student at the University of South Carolina, the recipient of the 2009 American Atheists $2,000 Founders Scholarship. Each year, the American Atheists awards three scholarships: the $2,000 award; a $1,000 runner-up scholarship; and the $1,000 Chinn Scholarship to a gay or lesbian student atheist. Several Secular Student Alliance affiliate leaders received Honorable Mentions. In subsequent editions of the eMpirical, the Secular Student Alliance will chronicle the other awardees: Shelley Mountjoy, a student at George Mason University, and Jon Adams, a student at Utah State University.