It's time for us to announce our most exciting event of the year:

Secular Student Alliance's 2010 Annual Conference

This is the largest and most exciting event held by the SSA, when secular students and group leaders from all over the U.S. join together for a weekend of networking, learning, problem-solving, and FUN.  The conference is open to all SSA affiliate members and leaders, secular students unaffiliated with a campus group, students interested in starting a group at their campus, and off-campus supporters of the secular student movement.

This year's conference will be held from July 23-25th, again in our home city of Columbus, OH, hosted by the Students for Freethought at the Ohio State University.  Registration for students who are national SSA members is only $25! Get all the conference details, register online, apply for travel grants and more at www.secularstudents.org/annualconference.

Register now!

Students get down with their cephalopod selves at the SSA's 2009 conference! Join us this summer!

This year's speaker lineup includes outstanding leaders of the freethought movement and students who have made a real impact.  We'll be joined by student leaders Jennifer McCreight, John Figdor and Lucy Gubbins, as well as popular bloggers Hemant Mehta and Julia Galef.  You'll get to meet and work with SSA staff members August Brunsman, Lyz Liddell, Jesse Galef and Nate Mauger.  And to top it all off, we'll hear a fantastic keynote presentation by the cutting-edge blogger Greta Christina!

Our conference this year includes an optional trip to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, where we'll have a guided tour showing us living examples of evolution in action.  The Columbus Zoo has been ranked the #1 zoo in the U.S., and we're excited to share our hidden treasure with our students.

Other exciting events include the presentation of the SSA Best Awards ( apply now!) and the Freethought Backbone award, a reception for all conference attendees, and a rousing afterparty at the infamous Woody Hayes Tavern!

Registration for the annual conference is only $25 for student members of the national Secular Student Alliance. (Yes, it's ok to join just to get the conference discount!)  And on-campus housing available for only $23/night!

Thanks to a generous contribution from the Roxbury Foundation, we have plenty of travel grants available to help students get to the conference.  You can apply for a travel grant online, and we'll let you know if you're approved as soon as possible so you can start planning.

Secular Student Alliance Executive Director will be presenting about the state of the freethought movement at a meeting of the Free Inquiry Group (FIG).  The meeting will take place on Tuesday, May 25th at 7:00 p.m. at the Hannaford Suites Hotel.  The Hannaford is located at 5900 East Galbraith Rd, Cincinnati, OH. The meeting is free and open to the public.

The 2010 Secular Student Alliance Board of Directors elections have closed.  Ten candidates ran for seven two-year terms.  SSA directors are elected by the membership and any member may stand for election to the Board of Directors. The SSA is governed by a Board of Directors which is elected by the SSA's members.  Anyone is welcome to become a member.

The winners of the election were Joe Foley, Jennifer McCreight, Ashley Paramore, Matthew LaClair, Don Sutterfield, Michael Amini and Leslie A. Zukor.  Jason Cooperrrider, Frank Bellamy and Tannie Low also ran.

Ashley Paramore, Matthew LaClair and Don Sutterfield were all reelected to second terms on the SSA Board of Directors.  Joe Foley was reelected to his third term.  Jennifer McCreight, Michael Amini and Leslie A. Zukor were all elected for the first time.  Hemant Mehta, Mary Ellen Sikes, Andrew Cederdahl, John Figdor,  and Shelley Mountjoy were not up for reelection in this cycle and will continue on the board.

UPDATE: New Directors announced.

The 2010 elections for the Secular Student Alliance Board of Directors runs from 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, 4/28/2010 to 12:59 p.m. on Wednesday, 5/5/2010.

Ten candidates are running for seven spots on the Secular Student Alliance Board of Directors. All Secular Student Alliance members in good standing may vote in the election. The seven candidates who receive the most votes, and at least a third of the votes cast, will be elected to two year terms on the Secular Student Alliance Board of Directors.

Jon and Amber were the Secular Student Alliance's 2009 summer interns, be sure to read Amber's thoughts about her internships.

• Internship Details
• Task Focus Areas
• How To Apply
  
  

Internship Details
* These positions are ten weeks long and have a $200/week stipend. 
* The start and stop dates are flexible, as are breaks, we only require a commitment of approximately ten weeks sometime between mid May and late September. 
* These positions are 40 hr./week ($200) positions and will take place during normal business hours except where otherwise noted. 
* We are willing to be flexible in terms of time and stipend to meet academic requirements.
* The interns will work at our office in Columbus, OH.
* On a case-by-case basis, some work may be able to be done via telecommuting.

Our mission is to organize, unite, educate, and serve students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, democracy, secularism, and human based ethics. The bulk of our efforts go into organizing and supporting students and student groups who do not see theism as the source of morality or knowledge--this includes atheists, agnostics, humanists, rationalists and other non-theists.  We have over 200 affiliates in nine countries--the vast majority of our affiliates are in the U.S.

The Secular Student Alliance is a 501(c)(3) educational, non-profit, public charity.  We were founded in 2000 by students and recent students.  We are headquartered in Columbus, OH.

On 1/5/2010 the Secular Student Alliance Board of Directors voted to make the following change to Article 3, Section 6, Part (a) of our Bylaws. 

There have been two requirements for being elected to the SSA Board of Directors:

1) Being one of the candidates who gets the most votes.  The candidates with the most votes will fill the open slots on the Board of Directors.

2)  Getting at least a majority of the votes cast.

The Bylaws have been changed so that the second requirement is met with only one third of the votes cast.