Session: First Amendment Events: Go big or go home!

Verdict: Good information, but it may have been for the wrong crowd.



By Michele Boyet

Media Business Manager



First off I'd like to say that I fully support the First Amendment. That said, if you were looking for innovative and creative ways to celebrate the First Amendment on your campus, this session probably didn't benefit you too much. While what the student newspaper from Loyola Marymount University did was pretty cool, it probably wouldn't work at most public universities due to apathetic students and a lack of money. (Loyola is a private Jesuit University in Los Angeles, which happens to have a lot of funding). If spending big bucks to get hotshot speakers to come to your campus isn't your school's kinda’ thing, then this session may have left you with some questions.



If any of you attended the CMA convention in St. Louis this past October, there was a session about "exciting First Amendment events," which was cancelled. Instead of moving along to another session, I decided to throw away the cancelled signs and hold the session myself. I had a blast. I'd love to do it again.



While it may not have asnwered everyone's questions, I do need to give Loyola credit for the philanthropic aspect they added to their week of First Amendment awareness. The Loyolan had "I love the First Amendment" shirts made and sold them during their First Amendment week, donating all the proceeds to the Press Institute for Women in the Developing World, an international non-profit organization that trains women in developing countries to report and write news within their countries. If you can afford to have the shirts made, this is an awesome idea.



The biggest critique I had of this session is that they barely touched on how to get funding for the type of event they did. For a school like mine, this is a big concern. Also, students at my school - which is almost 85 percent commuter students - probably wouldn't care much about a bunch of speakers, mostly because they're pretty apathetic or really busy.


I was the student coordinator for a First Amendment event on my campus last year, and we tried to overcome this problem by being a little bit more interactive.



Our apathetic students only come out for one thing – free food. So in order to inspire them to learn about the First Amendment, we tempted their stomachs. At our First Amendment Free Food Festival students "theoretically" signed away their First Amendment rights for a chance to get from free grub. Once inside our hedged-off and gated spot we made sure that all five of your First Amendment rights were violated.


The event was a pretty big success. It has become a template for other schools around the country. Loyola even adapted the idea and added it to their First Amendment week. I'm also flying out to Houston to put on the same event at the University of Houston next September. Check out the slide show from the original event at www.collegemedia.org/images/stories/1AFFF.



And if you're interested in putting on a FAFFF at your school, e-mail me at mboyet@gmail.com. We might even have some money to give you as well as supplies and help to make this event successful at your school.