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The Daily OrangeBeyond the hill | Students play dead for Darfur: UWashington group recreates scene in quad
By Chelsea Prince
Posted: 4/29/07, 11:55 PM EST Section: News
"Beyond the Hill" is a feature in The Daily Orange which highlights national collegiate news that is of interest to Syracuse University students.
As 40 students lay "dead" on Red Square at the University of Washington, a pang of shock and awareness seared through the campus.
The somber mock-death performance from the Save Darfur Coalition at University of Washington aimed to illuminate the disturbing results of inhumanity in Darfur, where genocide has accounted for more than 200,000 civilian deaths.
Although Die-In for Darfur, one of many events sponsored by SDCUW, only lasted 30 minutes on April 26, its powerful influence caused resounding commotion for days to follow. The calendar of Washington school events made no mention of the Die-In for Darfur on the day's long list of activities, but it managed to make more headlines than them all.
"It was a completely student-run event. SDCUW was in charge," said a representative from WU's Office of Student Activities. "There was no affiliation with the university."
The event was conducted last year, but it was not as successful due to severe weather conditions. It was difficult to get a response from people while students were running to class through thrashing rain and wind, the representative said.
The Die-In for Darfur made strides on both a national and international level.
Not only did members of the student-run organization lie on the ground to symbolize the death of innocent international deaths by genocide, but there was also a petition to deinstitutionalize companies that buttress the enemy.
Coalition for Darfur at University of Washington was formed two and a half years ago by a group of students who want to raise awareness about Darfur through political actions, working with local representatives and education. There is presently a core group of about 10 or 15, although there are more than 300 acclaimed members, said Lauren Michelle Ciszak, chief organizer of the Die-In for Darfur event at WU.
"I prefer the Die-In to some of our other events because it gets to people who normally wouldn't come to a lecture or rally for Darfur," Ciszak said. "One of our group's biggest problems with this kind of activism is that it leads to a sort of 'preaching to the choir' phenomenon with the same people showing up to all of our events, but it is kind of hard to ignore 40 people lying in the middle of campus."
The coalition achieved its goal to raise general campus awareness and even had to run back to make more copies of petition letters that asked the Seattle City Council to divest from companies that do harmful work in Sudan.
Other than the Die-In for Darfur, SDCUW does presentations at high schools and middle schools around Seattle, sponsors educational movies such as Hotel Rwanda and Darfur Diaries and devotes most of its effort toward reducing investment in harmful companies.
"Personally, if we do it again, which I imagine we probably will, I want to get our message out even better than before and get people more involved as they are walking by," Ciszak said. "It is hard to talk to people about the situation in Darfur if we are lying down on the ground. Next time we may have people walking around to answer questions."
SDCUW has recently become a chapter of Students Taking Action Now for Darfur, a nationwide organization that is composed of more than 700 chapters in the United States. STAND is somewhat of an umbrella organization whose purpose is to provide as much support, training and access to resources as possible to individual collegiate and high school chapters nationwide. SDCUW is able to keep its unique name as long as it acknowledges STAND as its mother organization.
STAND has sponsored hundreds of national events, lectures, vigils and national lobbying days, said Sean Redding, media relations for STAND.
"Right now, we have 129 events going on within our organization and within our chapters. The Die-In for Darfur is just one of the many movements that have taken place this week. Quite a few of our collegiate chapters, like the coalition at UW have actively participated," said Redding, as she made her way back home from a rally at the White House.
The Die-In has gotten a pretty positive response from the public, Redding said. STAND will wait until the end of the week to calculate how much of a difference it has actually made in the struggle to end the tragic events in Darfur.
Dean steps down
Marilee Jones, dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, resigned from her position Thursday after admitting that she fabricated her education qualifications.
Jones, who worked at the school for almost three decades, did not even have an undergraduate degree, even though she said she had degrees from three New York state institutions: Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
She was, however, a part-time student at Rensselaer in the 1970s for one academic year, but officials from the other two schools said they had no record of her.
Neighborhood evacuation
A neighborhood in Tucson was evacuated Thursday after authorities found a truck - rented by four University of Arizona students - filled with random animal parts, such as rotting fish and pig organs. They had intended to dump the truck's contents on one of the neighborhood's front lawns as a prank.
Also found within the truck were ammonia and bleach, which prompted the police to evacuate the block. The students later returned to the neighborhood, confessed to renting the truck and were released, though they may face charges.
As 40 students lay "dead" on Red Square at the University of Washington, a pang of shock and awareness seared through the campus.
The somber mock-death performance from the Save Darfur Coalition at University of Washington aimed to illuminate the disturbing results of inhumanity in Darfur, where genocide has accounted for more than 200,000 civilian deaths.
Although Die-In for Darfur, one of many events sponsored by SDCUW, only lasted 30 minutes on April 26, its powerful influence caused resounding commotion for days to follow. The calendar of Washington school events made no mention of the Die-In for Darfur on the day's long list of activities, but it managed to make more headlines than them all.
"It was a completely student-run event. SDCUW was in charge," said a representative from WU's Office of Student Activities. "There was no affiliation with the university."
The event was conducted last year, but it was not as successful due to severe weather conditions. It was difficult to get a response from people while students were running to class through thrashing rain and wind, the representative said.
The Die-In for Darfur made strides on both a national and international level.
Not only did members of the student-run organization lie on the ground to symbolize the death of innocent international deaths by genocide, but there was also a petition to deinstitutionalize companies that buttress the enemy.
Coalition for Darfur at University of Washington was formed two and a half years ago by a group of students who want to raise awareness about Darfur through political actions, working with local representatives and education. There is presently a core group of about 10 or 15, although there are more than 300 acclaimed members, said Lauren Michelle Ciszak, chief organizer of the Die-In for Darfur event at WU.
"I prefer the Die-In to some of our other events because it gets to people who normally wouldn't come to a lecture or rally for Darfur," Ciszak said. "One of our group's biggest problems with this kind of activism is that it leads to a sort of 'preaching to the choir' phenomenon with the same people showing up to all of our events, but it is kind of hard to ignore 40 people lying in the middle of campus."
The coalition achieved its goal to raise general campus awareness and even had to run back to make more copies of petition letters that asked the Seattle City Council to divest from companies that do harmful work in Sudan.
Other than the Die-In for Darfur, SDCUW does presentations at high schools and middle schools around Seattle, sponsors educational movies such as Hotel Rwanda and Darfur Diaries and devotes most of its effort toward reducing investment in harmful companies.
"Personally, if we do it again, which I imagine we probably will, I want to get our message out even better than before and get people more involved as they are walking by," Ciszak said. "It is hard to talk to people about the situation in Darfur if we are lying down on the ground. Next time we may have people walking around to answer questions."
SDCUW has recently become a chapter of Students Taking Action Now for Darfur, a nationwide organization that is composed of more than 700 chapters in the United States. STAND is somewhat of an umbrella organization whose purpose is to provide as much support, training and access to resources as possible to individual collegiate and high school chapters nationwide. SDCUW is able to keep its unique name as long as it acknowledges STAND as its mother organization.
STAND has sponsored hundreds of national events, lectures, vigils and national lobbying days, said Sean Redding, media relations for STAND.
"Right now, we have 129 events going on within our organization and within our chapters. The Die-In for Darfur is just one of the many movements that have taken place this week. Quite a few of our collegiate chapters, like the coalition at UW have actively participated," said Redding, as she made her way back home from a rally at the White House.
The Die-In has gotten a pretty positive response from the public, Redding said. STAND will wait until the end of the week to calculate how much of a difference it has actually made in the struggle to end the tragic events in Darfur.
Dean steps down
Marilee Jones, dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, resigned from her position Thursday after admitting that she fabricated her education qualifications.
Jones, who worked at the school for almost three decades, did not even have an undergraduate degree, even though she said she had degrees from three New York state institutions: Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
She was, however, a part-time student at Rensselaer in the 1970s for one academic year, but officials from the other two schools said they had no record of her.
Neighborhood evacuation
A neighborhood in Tucson was evacuated Thursday after authorities found a truck - rented by four University of Arizona students - filled with random animal parts, such as rotting fish and pig organs. They had intended to dump the truck's contents on one of the neighborhood's front lawns as a prank.
Also found within the truck were ammonia and bleach, which prompted the police to evacuate the block. The students later returned to the neighborhood, confessed to renting the truck and were released, though they may face charges.
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