Author: Christina LeBlanc
Camp Wellstone, a seminar on effectively organizing and mobilizing communities politically, came to Occidental’s campus on September 21 and 22.
The two-day seminar focused on grassroots activism and demonstrated highly effective methods of organizing a community for a common goal. With topics such as “Power and Politics the Wellstone Way,” “Developing and Using an Effective Message” and “Organizing as Life-long Commitment,” the program was designed to prepare students for facing real-life scenarios in a political setting.
Phil Barney ’07, Sarah Baglee (senior) and Sonia Huizar (senior) headed up the planning of Camp Wellstone and obtained funding through the Remsen Bird Fund and the Center for Community Based Learning (CCBL). The event was co-sponsored by the CCBL and the Office of Student Life, and was open to the entire campus.
Around 75 students attended Friday’s session, and throughout Saturday, students came and went during multiple sessions focused around specific topics. Mary Carlton (sophomore), a project manager for the CCBL, said she felt the Camp was “relatively effective, although [if it happened] later in the year it may have been more widely attended.”
Wellstone literature says Campus Camp Wellstone, the college-level seminar, is geared specifically towards young, progressive, socially conscious students. The program was based on a campaign model used by Senator Paul Wellstone called the Wellstone Triangle, which believes that in order to be politically effective, it is necessary to have people involved in the issues and in electoral politics.
The seminar leaders were all young recent college graduates from both locally and nationally based organizations. All of the speakers present had a strong political education background and had worked first-hand in political organizing. Carlos Camacho, one of the leaders of Camp Wellstone, worked for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in one of the largest organizing efforts of black workers this decade, and he is currently working for the Young People’s Project as a project coordinator. Emma Greenman, another leader, is currently pursuing a joint Master in Public Policy and Law at Harvard and UC Berkeley.
Students were designated in either Issue Team or Electoral Team and stayed with that group both days. The Issue Team was given a fabricated change in environmental policy for a fictional city and was required to build support for the issue. The Electoral Team’s objective was to build support for a fictional candidate running for office and from the same fictional city that the Issue Team was working with.
The two days were filled with simulations mimicking real-life problems faced by campaigners and organizers within communities. “[The similations] touched on a lot of real life aspects from Oxy,” Carlton said. “Most of the groups used in simulations are present on our campus.” The direct relation between the problems and solutions facing student organizers was fundamental to Camp Wellstone.
“It was nice to have someone outside of Oxy training us,” Carlton said. “We thought about that while planning the event. It was important to have something without an Oxy bias.”
While some students felt the program was long and a large time commitment, most students were engaged in the material. The flexible nature of the program allowed students to attend certain events that focused on their personal interests, rather than having to attend both days.
“Overall, I have heard good responses from people,” Carlton said. “It taught me how to develop more leaders around campus so it’s not only one group of people who organize here at Oxy.
“It was a diverse group of students, and I thought everyone seemed to learn something.”
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