Brandeis students are joining the national outcry over climate change, with some planning to board a bus this morning to attend the Boston climate strike. Ahead of the strike, students gathered Tuesday evening to create posters expressing their concerns over climate change.
Signs made by Brandeis students read: “Don’t Burn My Future,” “Planet Not Profit” and “Your Mother is Watching.”
Members of the university has been supportive of students’ involvement in the current politics regarding climate change, including Associate Professor Tom King (ENG), one of the faculty coordinators of the aRt-ivist event. “Our goal was to get students excited for the global climate strike that Brandeis is participating in this Friday,” King said.
Creativity, the Arts and Social Transformation (CAST), the Brandeis minor which hosted the aRt-ivist event, is all about the combination of theory and practice, King said. This is an opportunity to use creative techniques to build a social justice movement, he continued.
Many of the students who were in attendance making posters said they would also be involved in the march that is taking place later this week. Most of the students had received excused absences from class to leave campus at 10 a.m to attend the protest from their professors.
However, some students said they would have to use one of their class absences in order to go. Miriam Berro Krugman ’20, a student participating in the climate strike said that going to the climate strike “should be encouraged. It’s dire and people forget about that in day to day life.”
One of the student coordinators of the aRt-ivist event, Zoë Rose ’20, told The Brandeis Hoot that she was amazed by the turnout. CAST has held events in the past like this, and they did not get as many students as they had hoped, Rose said.
“We’re creating a space for people to come together and have conversations that we don’t normally have,” Rose said about CAST’s intent with this event.
Other students talked about what they wanted to see happen after the march on Friday.
“It’s great to have one day of action, but you gotta make sure that once you return you pick up your phone or your laptop and make change happen. It’s a continuous process,” said Alina Sipp-Alpers ’21.
