Being in or close to a state capital is good – e.g., UW-Madison or UMN-Twin Cities. But perhaps not Michigan State.
Do you want to protest or do you want to actually work in a state or national government offices and help get stuff done? Willamette is literally steps from the state Capitol building which makes it very convenient to intern fit not just poly Sci majors. (I knew bio majors who worked in the fish and game department for example)
My experience with protests on campus is that your are preaching to the choir.
If you are looking for an activist college campus culture than Brown might fit the bill. Given its location, however, it’s likely going to be more on-campus displays of activism.
From your list - Chicago not known to be extremely liberal/activist.
Vasaar, Wesleyan, Bard, Lewis & Clark
Michigan?
I dunno about equating liberal with activism. . . . I don’t think of Bard students getting up in arms about something, but I might be wrong. Vassar is super liberal but I can’t think of any examples where there were sit-ins or anything. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Also both are pretty isolated and so impact may be limited.
On the other hand, UW Madison has had big demonstrations and Wisconsin is a state that is considered a swing state.
Oberlin and any of the Ohio colleges would allow you to do your activism in a swing state.
You do realize, I hope, that your criterion of “students who aren’t afraid to voice their opinions” also includes conservative students . . .
In any case, you be “politically active” at virtually any campus in the US. If what you are seeking is in fact something on the order of a progressive echo chamber, in which “resistance” is itself normative conduct, then the above posters have offered useful suggestions, some of which I’ll second:
Oberlin, Grinnell, Reed, Swarthmore, Macalaster, Columbia, Brown, Vassar, Sarah Lawrence, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Pitzer, Humboldt State, Warren Wilson (in Ashville, NC), and New College (in Sarasota, FL).
As you can see, LACs will dominate this category, if only because their smaller size makes it easier for the student body to be less ideologically diverse and more monolithic. FWIW, I’d say that Oberlin takes the overall prize for “most progressive.”
It really depends on what type of activism you are interested in - political, social, environmental, economic, medical, religious, musical, etc. If you want to affect real change it won’t happen on a college campus where most students and faculty have similar views and PC rules. When you are confronted with real world problems with real constraints it becomes a lot more interesting. Are you interested in a meaningful life , merely telling other people what to do, or just feeling good?
The most effective activists- people who really make a difference in the lives of others- IMO are often involved in business, engineering and medicine AND the arts. Using the government to take resources from person A and give it to person B doesn’t create any more happiness overall. Inventing, treating, or streamlining something adds to everyone’s happiness.
I would take a different approach. Start by looking at non-profits and NGOs that you admire. Go to their web sites and find out where their executives and board members went to school. You should be able to glean a list from there. Use that as a starting point for your college list. Then filter it through the usual constraints (NPC, Geography, Quality, etc.)
A lot of social change gets its start on college campuses, actually. Much of the white support for Civil Rights, anti-Vietnam War activism, LGBTQ activism–all heavily present on college campuses in their earliest stages before capturing the support of the mainstream.
Barnard, Wellesley, Smith—essentially any of the Seven Sisters will tend to lean towards social justice-based activism.
@marvin100, the jury is still out about LGBTQ activism in the US, though it has certainly taken root in one political party, but that is more of a first world problem (many would argue not really an issue at all), and civil rights activism took place 2 generations ago. I was referring to developing world problems of poverty, real oppression of women and LGBTQ people (e.g. being shot/mutilated/burned etc.) , poverty and pollution, war and genocide, lack of freedom, infrastructure and resources etc, etc. that affect many places outside of the US and Canada. Corruption, lawlessness and crony capitalism are rampant most everywhere to some degree.
My question to the OP is really about what is the size and scope of the problem the OP wants to solve. What would be the most effective way to solve those problems? What matters to the OP?
It’s true, @TooOld4School , that there are problems that campus activism may not be able to help solve, but I think my comment made clear that your initial assertion (“If you want to affect [sic] real change it won’t happen on a college campus”) is false.
We can quibble about whether social change is beneficial or pernicious, but social change does happen, and historically, campus activism has contributed to it.
I think a benefit to being on a campus with social activism is just being exposed to it. Regardless of whether or not it enacts lasting change, it does get one out of the campus bubble and focused on issues and politics on a greater scale. I know my own kids have become much more aware of the world around them through their on campus and off campus experiences due to a social change focus where they attend. This interest and activism is something that has changed them and will affect them throughout their lives.
An argument could be made for an activist to seek out campuses where the political attitudes are not uniformly in agreement with the activist. Those where almost everyone agrees with the activists could result in the activists looking for causes and protesting about trivial things because the stuff that really matters has already been done. At other campuses, the activist could make more of a difference if s/he convinces others to change the situation, although, obviously, success is not guaranteed, and the activist has to choose tactics carefully (some do choose tactics poorly, resulting on those initially neutrally disposed turning away from their cause instead of supporting it).
One thing I like about what I have seen one of my kids get involved in is the student focus is off campus involvement, be it hands on work in the local community, involvement in protests/marches in the city right there or chartering buses whereby a whole group of students travel to things like the Climate Change march in NYC or marches in Washington, DC. Yes, there is activity on campus and much, but not all, of the students can be like minded in their thinking, but they take that process and involvement off campus as well. The student body is also very active in underserved areas of the local community. In other words, they do try to “be the change they want to see”. I actually find it quite heartwarming and preferential to my own 1980s college days where students had a more yuppie, self-focused mentality. Perhaps it is why I don’t really get why so many people complain about millennials. What I have witnessed is quite different from many of the media portrayals.
I had always heard that Cal is as left as you can get! Plus, it is close to San Francisco, home to one of the biggest pride festivals on the face of the planet.
Clark U is fairly activist, but also does a lot of community service work in poor communities in Worcester.
Tulane is less political, but again, community service is a huge part of the school culture and an academic course about community service, as well as volunteer work, are actually still required to graduate. Keep it in mind since you’d actually have a direct impact, and it’s in a major city which makes off campus activism opportunities more plentiful.
SF State is more leftist than Cal. You don’t have to worry about any pesky conservatives giving a public speech at either campus, though.
Agree with Brantly, it’s a wildly chosen list.
But folks, OP said, “I want to be in feminist marches and pride parades and #BlackLivesMatter protests and sit ins in representatives’ offices… Social justice is extremely important to me, as you can see.”
I’m not sure we do. She doesn’t seem to be referring to the hard, everyday work of fostering change, which can be very slow (activism or advocacy,) those ups and downs, as much as the crowd protests themselves.
So if she wants a rollicking protest, why not some college near DC? And when you aren’t protesting for a cause there, you can go protest the protesters you oppose.
Real social justice is about more, can be working a phone bank during an election year or helping with community issues, now and longer term, an abuse hotline, working in schools. Not as glitzy. I’m curious what she does now.
At Cal right now and we had Free Palestine activists and a #WhiteLivesSplatter activist at Sproul. Sounds right up your alley if you’re looking for somewhere to shout to the world.