New Guide Offers Students Ways to Confront Liberalism on Campus
by Jim Brown
September 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Young America's Foundation (YAF) has unveiled its "2006-2007 Campus Conservative Battleplan," a new guide designed to arm conservative college and university students with strategies for confronting liberalism on their campuses.Pat Coyle, director of campus programs for YAF and author of the "Battleplan," says the book is patterned after the "Ronald Reagan Model of Campus Activism" and gives conservative students activism ideas to promote traditional values each month of the school year.
It is because of Ronald Reagan's style of aggressive or confrontational approaches that he is credited with ending the Cold War, Coyle observes. "Similarly," he says, "on college campuses, if conservatives follow this approach and if they are aggressive -- even if they go to what they feel is the most liberal campus in the country -- they can have the same results and be very effective in changing the atmosphere."
Among other things, the "Battleplan" encourages conservative students to promote intellectual diversity at their schools by investigating school's funding practices, and by examining reading assignments and the voter registrations of professors for evidence of anti-conservative or pro-liberal bias. This month, however, Coyle says perhaps the most relevant way for conservative students to get involved is to honor victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
"We found a few years ago that most universities and even high schools were completely ignoring the day," the author notes. "Unfortunately, some schools are eager to go out and celebrate obscure leftist holidays like Caesar Chavez Day," he says, "but they didn't want to recognize one of the most influential events in recent American history, namely September 11."
As part of YAF's "9/11: Never Forget Project," students set up a display of 3,000 American flags on their campus, remembering each person killed in the terrorist attacks. Coyle says remembering the victims of 9-11 is just one of the many ideas offered to conservative college and university students in the Campus Conservative Battleplan, giving them creative ways to stand up for their viewpoint and values at their schools.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
