To the person who wrote “I Have F***ing Had It With This College’s Leadership”,

You should join an organized activist group on campus.

Last month’s headlining story, reflected a sentiment that many of us have had at one point or another: Olin’s administration is prioritizing making money over student, faculty, and staff voices and values. This piece is not to debate the validity of the sentiment, nor to try to point to where it stems from. For now, I will leave those discussions to your personal experiences, thoughts, conversations, and opinions. This piece is not just addressed to the person who wrote last month’s article; it is written to anyone who has passionately disapproved of a decision that has been made at Olin, to anyone who has been subject to a change outside of their control, and to anyone who has tried making change within the school. It is written with the intent of providing some advice on how to channel whatever anger, tiredness, disillusionment, jadedness, sadness, or whatever other emotion has come out of it. So, with that established:

To the person who wrote last month’s article,

You should join an organized activist group on campus, and I will offer to you Olin Climate Justice. Let me expound. I know what you’re feeling and I’ve been there before. You came here expecting to be able to make change, to be able to have autonomy in shaping your experience at Olin. Heck, it might be the reason you came to Olin in the first place; we certainly market ourselves as a co-creation paradise. But when you got here, it seemed like that was false advertising, that the only control students have is performative at best because everything you try to do fails or falls upon deaf ears. Now I want to be fully clear: that anger comes from a power dynamic that exists between administration and the rest of the college. You’re feeling powerless because, as a single person, you have no formal power to make change, especially in contrast to the few at the top that make the final decision. Even as you talk with peers that are feeling the same thing, what can you do? I have been in this situation, and it makes you feel alone and powerless against a system that you can’t change.

And that is why I encourage you to join an activist organization. The goal of activism is to gather these voices and more importantly, to organize them. In organizing, you combine the experience and knowledge of others. Many voices are taken and empowered to speak out as one. Making change gets complicated fast. Thinking about what change needs to be made is the easy first step, but thinking about the strategy, goals, methods, motivations, and everything else involved in making that change will quickly become incredibly daunting. You need more knowledge. You need more time. Most importantly, you need more support. Luckily, it exists. 

You need more knowledge. Decades of activist philosophy and learning have been compiled specifically for higher education institutions within the United States. They include what has worked, what hasn’t, what strategies exist and how to use them, and everything else about structuring and organizing. It has all been picked apart and put together. It has been tried and refined. And it has been documented so that the rest of us can learn and think and act with them. Even at Olin, OCJ has in-depth resources and documentation of activist movements going back to 2016, along with alumni contacts. Since we began as an organization in 2022, we have intentionally noted changemaking strategies, processes of decision-making, and reflections on actions and their impacts. We have made changes to our structure and strategies as we’ve learned. We have noted what hasn’t worked, and more importantly, what has. This knowledge exists in countless documents and in the memories of leads of any activist organization; go ask them for it. You don’t have to figure it all out yourself.

You need more time. An activist group distributes the work of organizing and running a campaign, allowing people to utilize their strengths and not have to take on everything at once. Organizing takes work. Strategizing, drafting arguments, researching, attending meetings, and a thousand other things need to be done for a well-run campaign. The amount of time that it would take one person to do all of this – especially at the college that studies the most – would be nearly impossible. A campaign needs a graphic designer just as much as it needs a legal researcher. This division of effort means that a changemaking effort isn’t dependent on one person, but can be worked on by many at a time. You don’t have to do all the work yourself.

And you need more support. Challenging any power structure alone is terrifying. There is uncertainty. There is loneliness. Prominently, there is risk and its associated fear. You don’t know how your friends or community will react – if you will be ridiculed or ostracized – which leads to hesitation in expressing yourself. You don’t know if there will be formal retaliation in the power structure, leaving you isolated or even exiled from your community. You know so little about so much that could happen, and it feels like there is no safe place to express yourself. And while I hope you can find trust and confidence in your friends, almost all activist organizations will serve as this safe space. Organizing is stressful and emotionally draining. Trust me, I understand this. It is essential to the functioning of an activist group to be a safe place – there needs to be a solidarity that is only built with trust. These places are intentionally created. We understand that while it’s useful for knowledge to be shared and work to be delegated, it is necessary for the team to trust itself and be comfortable with each other. But you don’t have to be by yourself through it.

I find that we’re often tempted at Olin to fall into a “do it yourself” mentality – a mentality that we should have the spunk to be able to look at any problem and find its solution. But speaking from experience, that will only serve to burn you. Any community problem is incredibly complex. When it comes to making a change, you need to remember: you don’t have to figure it all out yourself, you don’t have to do all the work yourself, and most importantly, you don’t have to be by yourself through it.

I want to end by quoting something in your piece: “Maybe they came with some grand ideas of how to change this place for the better, and found out that real change is hard.” Reflecting on myself, I know that this is true. I came here with grand illusions of how easy it would be to make large-scale change and shape my community for the better. My rose-tinted lenses were promptly smashed off my face as I was repeatedly punched over and over again. It hurt. And while I can’t speak for the experience of others, you may be right, maybe the administration also had this experience. Maybe you did as well. 

I don’t want anyone to have to go through that experience. I see the cure to it lying in more knowledge, time, and support. I humbly offer OCJ as a place that can hopefully fill those three in some capacity, but it doesn’t have to be us. There are plenty of other resources and people, on and off campus, trying to create change in a way that is informed by activist methodology and strategy. I mention OCJ because we are the only officially established activist organization on campus (so we get better snacks off that sweet CCO budget), but you have other options. You can take a Wellesley course on activism (shoutout to Laura Grattan)! You can get involved in an organization in Boston! You can find cool people and events to reach out and go to! And you can do umpteen other different things! (Although I will also mention that OCJ always starts our meetings with a share out on some aspect of activism and an exercise that teaches some organizing skill, typically unrelated to climate justice. If you want to just show up for the start, you’re welcome to do that as well!)

Changemaking is hard, and no one should have to do it alone. Find a place where you will have years of knowledge backing you. Where you will have the time and effort of others aiding you. And where you will have the support to be able to get through the rough days. We have a stronger voice together, and that’s what organizing is fundamentally about.

Find a place where your frustrations of powerlessness can be channeled into forces of power. 

In solidarity,

Ike

And just to complete the shameless plug: OCJ meets in the PARC 6:30 – 8 every Tuesday. All are welcome :)