Questioning Political Activity at Warren Wilson College
Alexandra Gore | November 15, 2023
Warren Wilson College (WWC) has been named number twenty-two Most Politically Active Students by Princeton Review. The book published on Aug. 15, 2023, titled “The Best 389 Colleges”, provides 389 in-depth school profiles based on candid feedback from students. This includes feedback covering academics, administration, campus life and financial aid.
Jay Miller, a philosophy professor at WWC, teaches courses in political philosophy and multiculturalism. Miller emphasizes the difference between being politically aware and politically active. He believes that to fully understand the Princeton Review ranking, that differentiation must be acknowledged.
“What’s interesting about that — any of these Princeton Rankings — you always want to check to see exactly what it is that they’re asking for,” Miller said. “And in this case, the question they asked was, ‘How do students identify themselves as politically aware?’ So I noticed there’s a little bit of a distinction between being politically aware and politically active. One can be politically active without being politically aware, and one can be politically aware without being politically active.”
Forest Fulford is a second-year student at WWC and works on the Forestry Crew. Their political activity includes attending street protests, mutual aid and direct action to benefit people experiencing poverty. They believe that, while there are people doing great work on campus, WWC lacks a framework for taking action.
“I feel like our campus isn’t very politically active,” Fulford said. “I definitely think there’s a lot of people who are doing really good work, and I don’t want to disparage any of that. I definitely think that for the amount of people who are on the same page about certain issues, I would love to see way more action to back up those values. It can be really hard when there’s not a framework for actually getting involved in taking action.”
On the contrary, Miller says that it is not surprising that WWC has some of the most politically active and aware students.
“Our students happen to be those who really want to be involved in social justice,” Miller said. “They don’t want to be seen as oblivious, and so they’re engaged. And I think at a place like this, we value that. So, it doesn’t surprise me at all. I think there’s no question that our students are involved in a particular way.”
Kashius Ford, a second-year student on Garden Crew, believes that WWC students are politically active, but it may not be apparent because their focus is directed to off-campus organizations and events.
“I know historically, we have had a good bit of activism, and we do have a good bit of activism still,” Ford said. “People are very politically engaged. It’s largely not directly with an on-campus organization, we’ve been obviously very engaged with showing up in big ways to Palestine events. I know that Black Lives Matter protests were intense here. I do think we have far more political engagement than your average school. I feel like everyone at Wilson is very political, even if they’re not actually actively engaged in activism.”
Ford also mentioned that WWC has a lack of political education, and while students may be very passionate about political topics, sometimes they cannot identify why.
“I think politically educating yourself is really important, like trying to have a deep nuanced understanding of the issues at hand, if that’s something you have the capacity for,” Ford said. “There’s a lot of political passion at Wilson, but there’s also some lack of political education. Like, I don’t know what percentage of people at Wilson could actually tell you what capitalism is despite everyone being passionately against it.”
WWC’s Student Government Association (SGA) has restarted for the 2023-2024 school year after being tucked away during the COVID-19 lockdown. According to WWC’s SGA co-president and leader of the Indigenous Student Association, Jetta Ghosthorse, political leadership on campus has fluctuated over the last few years.
“At least in the past five or so years, there’s been a precedent to completely cut off student communication with the trustees,” Ghosthorse said. “I think that was a big reason why students became so skeptical of any sort of authority. But I think that also included SGA as well — students didn’t feel like their voices mattered. It just wasn’t an effective means of communication, because really, how the institution portrayed student communication was not valued at all.”
According to the Princeton Review article, one student describes WWC as “work for the hands, service for the heart, learning for the mind.” Fulford, however, says that the service portion of WWC culture does not feel as prevalent on campus as they expected.
“Wilson as a school likes to administratively pay lip service to the work that we do, I think it likes to talk about community engagement so much,” Fulford said. “I don’t really feel like that’s a very big part of campus at all. It was something that I was interested in when I first saw this college, that their community engagement is a huge part of their identity, and it plays a big role in the lives of students here. I feel like that doesn’t feel accurate to me at all.”
Ghosthorse — a CORE Crew member — approaches political activism on campus with less focus on the individual and instead looks at the community.
“I think being such a small campus, we really stick out when people are politically focused or have strong opinions on topics,” Ghosthorse said. “It shows because we can be loud and pretty much everyone is going to hear us. We are very concentrated. So that makes things very escalated, but I also think we are a safe space for communities like that.”
Of the top 25 colleges on The Princeton Review’s list, WWC has the smallest full-time enrollment population.
Ghosthorse added that while WWC is a safe space for queer communities, international students and students of color may not feel like their voices are as appreciated.
“On the other hand, for people of color, international students, they kind of feel the opposite, because we aren’t represented as much even in the intersectionality between people of color and queerness,” Ghosthorse said. “We definitely have a very strong community when talking about topics such as queerness, but it can look different from different perspectives.”
For students who are looking to broaden their political activity, Ford suggested attending events and getting involved with local organizations.
“I think a good way to start things is going to protests because you don’t have to be officially part of any organization, it’s very easy to do,” Ford said. “That kind of thing is usually publicized on campus, so it’s easy to find out about. And often, there’s transportation. It’s a good way to get involved with other organizations, and organizers are passionate people [who] are generally very excited to talk to people and excited to make connections. Beyond that, I think politically educating yourself is really important.”
"Human Lives are not political pawns - Refugee Action protest 27 July 2013 Melbourne" by John Englart (Takver) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
