DU students came together last weekend to participate in Students for a Democratic Society’s (SDS) Radical Rush, which included several events from grilling to guest speakers.
SDS created the Radical Rush weekend to bring together activist groups at DU.
The chapter’s mission is to create an alternative community involving social justice organizations and students that has the ability to tackle issues.
“We wanted to create an event to bring activist groups together to get things done. As small organizations we are fragmented and can’t get much done. We want to start a dialogue between groups on campus to work toward this,” said junior Lauren Golden, who began SDS with junior Ben Waldman this year.
SDS member Kristen Colley said the goal is, “finding an issue and actually doing something about it,” when explaining SDS and Radical Rush to a group of students at an event.
The weekend kicked off with a vegan grilling on Thursday afternoon. It included vegan hotdogs and vegetables. Members of SDS handed out the food in Driscoll due to the rain and spoke to students about what SDS is about. An open graffiti wall was supposed to accompany the grilling, but was not created due to the weather.
Freshman Carolyn Gunther said, “I had never heard of SDS before and after hearing what they want to do, I think that it might be a cool group to get involved with.”
Friday, a panel discussed DU’s marijuana policies in Lindsay Auditorium with an audience of about 20 people. Panel members included resident assistant Dillon Doyle, Professor Arthur Gilbert, Sgt. Steve Benet and attorney Brian Vicente, a drug-legalization activist in Denver. Campus Life did not send a representative to the discussion.
Junior Siaya Koclanes, a member of SDS, said, “I thought that it was interesting that Campus Life would not send a representative to defend the policies that they put into place.”
The panel members discussed and debated the marijuana policy at DU in relation to Denver laws and the Colorado state laws.
Sophomore Kylie Mangone said, “I thought the discussion was really interesting. I came thinking that it would be about why marijuana is bad and only talk about the laws, but there were people representing lots of different viewpoints.”
A potluck dinner and an open mic-soapbox-jam session followed later in the evening.
Saturday concluded Radical Rush with guest speaker Adam Navvaro, a veteran who served in Kosovo and represented the Veterans against the War. He spoke about the various things that people who serve on the front lines encounter, such as sex crimes and murders, and the effects of these events have on the soldiers later in life, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
He also discussed the GI Resistance and the importance of raising awareness about the psychological and physical sufferings of some veterans.
Freshman Andrea Spagnolie said, “He really brought to light a lot of the terrible things that soldiers who serve go through and made me realize that it is important to raise awareness about this issue.”
The night concluded with a “Drop Beats not Bombs” dance party, which featured a live band, The Mighty Quiet.
A community garden workday was set to take place on Saturday morning but was cancelled due to the weather. However, another workplace will take place again this Saturday.
SDS is planning on another Radical Rush this fall as a week-long event, which will feature some of the same activities as this weekend’s as well as a few new events.
Koclanes said, “For SDS’s first event I am extremely happy with this weekend’s success…We learned a lot from this event, and I think that this experience will make Radical Rush even better in the fall.”
