Progressive Action Network holds first open meeting
By Kathryn Spangler
Old Gold and Black Reporter

> February 1, 2001

Twenty-four students attended the first meeting of a new student organization, the Progressive Action Network, held on Jan. 30 in Tribble Hall. PAN strives to work for progressive action on campus and in the local community by educating the student body on issues and maintaining communication with the administration in order to have changes enacted on campus.

“We kind of grew from last semester’s Nader Committee and the group of student organizations that protested the School of the Americas,” senior Sarah Rackley said.

The United States Army School of Americas, based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American soldiers in combat, counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics. Many Americans oppose the school for some of its graduates’ records of human rights abuses.

“We can bring about reform by joining together and committing ourselves to action,” Rackley said. “We won’t just sit around talking.”

PAN does not define itself as a political party, and Rackley emphasized that all members need not agree on every issue to become involved, just that they be willing to go out on campus and work to make change.

“Everyone who gets involved will become the actual leaders of the organization,” Rackley said. “The organization is only as strong as the commitment of its members.”

Students expressed their concerns during the first meeting about a number of issues, including the construction of a campus day-care center for the children of faculty members, the dispute over faculty salaries, the availability of birth control and the morning-after pill on campus, rape awareness education in local high schools and Jubilee 2000, which is part of a worldwide movement to cancel the debt of developing countries.

The members of PAN intend to select two or three issues they feel are the most feasible in order to form a cohesive vision for the group.

Several members of PAN are also involved with other progressive groups within the university, such as the Student Environmental Action Coalition, the Gay-Straight Student Alliance and the Winston-Salem chapter of the International Socialist Organization, which meets on campus.

“We talked about PAN not being made up of representatives of other organizations, but a group of individuals,” senior Ginny Bunch, a member of SEAC, said. “The best thing is to work collaboratively. There are certain things PAN can do as PAN without SEAC.”

“Two very local issues are environmental issues and the rape policy,” Bunch said. Bunch presented several issues that SEAC had been working on independently and that would be compatible with PAN’s vision, including the donation of leftover food from campus cafeterias to local soup kitchens, the installation of recycling bins in Polo Residence Hall and the Student Apartments, and the use of silverware and real plates in the Pit. Currently silverware and real plates are in storage on campus, but are not being used.

Junior Kristen Yocum suggested encouraging Shorty’s to buy only Free Trade coffee.

In April 2000 Starbucks Coffee reached an agreement with a fair trade organization to begin buying Fair Trade Certified coffee and marketing it in the company’s 2,300 locations in the United States and on its Internet site.

Underpaid coffee growers in developing countries receive 30 - 50 cents per pound of coffee, while middlemen pocket the rest of the $1 per pound paid by companies such as Starbucks.

Under the agreement, Starbucks will buy Fair Trade coffee at $1.26 per pound from certified importers who have paid the farmers a fair price. Universities must request that Fair Trade coffee be used where Starbucks coffee is sold on campus.

“We have a hole in that we don’t have a secular group on campus working against the death penalty,” senior Reagan Humber said. Recently a vigil was held at Wait Chapel in protest of the execution of convicted murderer Michael Sexton, who was executed Nov. 9, but People of Faith Against the Death Penalty sponsored the vigil.

It was suggested that PAN could encourage Student Government could pass a moratorium on the death penalty stating that students of this university want the death penalty stopped.

The sweatshop movement was also discussed at the meeting. PAN discussed urging the Deacon Shop to only sell brands that adhere to decent labor rights standards, and petitioning the ACC to use brands that don’t employ sweatshop workers as well.

Students who attended the meeting were invited to begin circulating a petition calling for Congress to overturn a provision in the Higher Education Act of 1998 that mandates that students convicted of any drug-related offense, without regard to the nature of the offense or the offender, be denied eligibility for financial aid for periods ranging from one year to “indefinite.”

“We definitely want to stir up action on campus,” Rackley said. “If people disagree with us, that’s fine.”

The next meeting of PAN will be held at 8 p.m. Feb. 5 in Tribble A202.