The Vanderbilt Political Review, a non-partisan political journal run entirely by Vanderbilt undergraduate students, will host the first Nashville Intercollegiate Activism Conference on Feb. 27. The one-day conference will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Nashville civil rights sit-ins and will examine how students were able to defeat segregation as well as how students can be involved in social change today.
Events will take at The Commons Center [map] on the southeastern side of campus near the Peabody College of Education and Human Development from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and are free and open to the public. Non-Vanderbilt attendees must register online at www.vanderbiltpoliticalreview.com/niac or contact matthew.d.taylor@vanderbilt.edu.
The schedule includes a professors’ panel, a student leaders’ panel and a political candidate and activist panel. There will also be a Political Activism Fair from 12 to 3 p.m. to allow various candidates and their representatives to recruit interested students from around Nashville to volunteer on campaigns.
The capstone of the conference will be a 5 p.m. keynote address by John Siegenthaler, former publisher of The Tennessean, adviser to Robert F. Kennedy and respected advocate for the Civil Rights movement in Nashville.
Gubernatorial candidates Zach Wamp, Kim McMillan and Jim Kyle will be in attendance to speak about their views of student activism, as well as congressional candidates Roy Herron, Patrick Miranda, Jim Tracy and Diane Black. Professors Klint Alexander of Vanderbilt Law School, Brian Russell of Tennessee State University and Linda Peek Schact of Lipscomb University will form a panel examining the future of student activism.
Event sponsors include The Vanderbilt Political Review, Vanderbilt Student Government, The Commons and Vanderbilt Leaders Engaging for an Active Democracy.
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