Students form new political group

Student activists are no longer congregating in front of Frist Campus Center, but the spirit of public involvement that inspired last year's filibuster is now being channeled into a new student-run organization. The Roosevelt Institution (RI) has emerged as a coalition of progressive students dedicated to making realistic impacts on local policy issues.

The Roosevelt Institute derives its name from the pragmatic and progressive efforts of Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. Started by Stanford students, RI has chapters at 29 colleges and universities across the United States, including five Ivy League schools.

"We wanted to build the progressive movement at Princeton. We wanted to focus momentum from the filibuster, which had gone off in several different points at this point," said Karen Wolfgang '06, one of the founding members of Princeton's RI chapter.

RI plans to become involved in a variety of local issues, including quality of food at local elementary, middle and high schools, immigration issues and energy conservation. Among other projects, RI plans to work with Greening Princeton to bring an organic farm to campus.

The RI officers — Wolfgang, Peter Hill '06, Catherine Kunkel '06 and Matthew Mims '06 — envision creating a network of progressive groups. A meeting of the officers last year resulted in an agreement to integrate the nascent group with the influence and goals of other campus organizations.

The written agreement characterizes RI as "a powerful tool" that is able to create "significant resources for progressive groups and activities on this campus." The document indicates that RI aims at "making connections with progressive alumni and faculty, asking for their support and advice."

The premise behind RI is to harness the intellectual powers of college students and to direct them into creating new policy proposals and solutions. The national coalition also assembles a digest of policy papers from each local chapter, called the Roosevelt Review.

Local chapters have significant control over issues and methods. "There is a recommended chapter model, but we can tweak it and change it," Mims said.

Through this structure, students can further their own areas of interest. Mims added, "Within each chapter there are policy centers, which are basically students who are passionate about a certain issue area. They form discussion groups, and out of this sort of research, there is hope that policy papers will come up."

Wolfgang recognizes the unique role of the Wilson School in providing a forum for the discussion of national and international politics, and said that RI will fill the need for debate over local issues.

"The Woodrow Wilson School has a lot of opportunities for students to become involved and to study issues, but the direct impact they're likely to have is not very big," Wolfgang said.

In focusing more intensely on local rather than national and international issues, the Princeton chapter differs from many other chapters across the nation. "It's about face-to-face meetings," Wolfgang said.

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By focusing on local instead of national issues, Wolfgang said, RI has an advantage over conservative campus political organizations that focus primarily on national politics.

"I think a lot of the conservative activism does occur on issues that are national in scope," Wolfgang said. "One of our [goals] will be providing a foil to the conservative groups on campus."

RI began its active recruitment process this fall. After the Activities Fair in September, the organization attracted a few dozen prospective members at their open house and organizational meetings. According to Wolfgang, this is a "good-sized group."

"The issue now is how to mobilize," she added.