From: "Nowlan, Robert A." <RANOWLAN@uwec.edu> Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:17:52 -0500 Subject: Report and Run-Down on a Number of Campus/Community Progressive Organizations Message-ID: <7A17A445D0203848B157E8D70D1AC77E459E9649B7@CHERRYPEPSI.uwec.edu>
Friends, SFPJ:
For your information, and also to encourage any and all among you able
and interesting in helping out to contact me about doing so, I'm sending yo
u a current report and run-down on a number of campus and community progres
sive organizations. Details below.
Bob Nowlan
Eau Claire Progressive Film Festival and Series
Now beginning our third consecutive year we are expanding to include a
monthly screening and discussion series--with events to take place in Octob
er, November, December, February, March, and May--as well as a ten-day fest
ival in April. Our first series event will take place this October 10, at
8 pm, in Davies Theater, with a screening and discussion of Ken Loach's 20
06 Cannes Film Festival top prize award-winning film The Wind That Shakes t
he Barley, starring Cillian Murphy. We are also organizing as an official
student organization that will operate throughout the academic year, as wel
l as continuing to offer students the chance to enroll in a spring semester
Eau Claire Progressive Film Festival class for course or service-learning
credit. We will keep you informed as we proceed in developing our series a
nd festival schedules, including we hope in bringing interesting guest pres
enters and performers to campus, but we also definitely welcome your suppor
t and assistance in whatever way you can give it. We especially hope that
attendance at our series and festival sessions, free as always, will be hig
h; we are one local campus and community organization that does scrupulousl
y follow the legal requirement to obtain official permission and pay corres
ponding fees to those who own the public performance rights for all the fil
ms we screen (unlike most other such groups, sad to say, who run the risk o
f legal difficulties every time they don't do this and every time they adve
rtise a screening as open to a public audience--whether they charge an entr
ance fee or not). If we have strong attendance and participation in our s
essions it more than makes up for the cost involved in putting this on for
the community. For more information, contact Bob Nowlan, Executive Direc
tor, the Eau Claire Progressive Film Festival and Series, at tor, the Eau Claire Progressive Film Festival and Series, at ranowlan@uwec.
edu<mailto:ranowlan@uwec.edu>, or John Nicksic, nicksijs@uwec.edu<mailto:ni
cksijs@uwec.edu>, Director, the Eau Claire Progressive Film Festival and Se
ries.
Progressive Media Network
The Progressive Media Network (PMN) is a campus and community organization
dedicated to fostering progressive alternatives to dominant corporate media
in Eau Claire, in the Chippewa Valley, and in West-Central and Northwest W
isconsin. PMN produces Progressive Outpost and is the principal sponsor of
the Eau Claire Progressive Film Festival-and Series. PMN is also a princi
pal contributor to WHYS Community Radio. PMN is interested in working, ove
r the long haul, to develop and carry out progressive interventions in prin
t, radio, television, film, video, musical, artistic, theatrical, and elect
ronic media. Progressive UWEC staff and faculty, as well as progressive co
mmunity members are most welcome to write for Progressive Outpost--and, als
o, to pass on story ideas to us. And again, we could certainly use your fi
nancial support to help us insure that this venture will continue over the
long-haul. And we can use additional people actively involved with our eff
orts so that we can not only improve what we do with Progressive Outpost bu
t also expand to meet our long-term goals of making a substantial impact in
television, music, art, theatre, and the internet/world wide web as well a
s in radio, film, and print. We are working on pursuing mechanisms for lon
g-term financial support, but that will take time; ultimately, we would lik
e to reach the point where we can hire someone full-time as our PMN general
manager. Finally, if you would like to make sure you receive a copy of an
issue of Progressive Outpost when it is in print, and don't find it easy t
o pick up at the locations where we normally distribute let me know and we'
ll get a copy to you. (Plus help with distribution is welcome too! Right
now PMN is, for all practical purposes, just two people.) Our plans for t
his academic year, at the moment, include publishing issues in November, Fe
bruary, and April, all near the very beginning of the month. For more info
rmation, contact PMN Co-Executive Directors, Jeremy Gragert, rmation, contact PMN Co-Executive Directors, Jeremy Gragert, gragerje@uwec.
edu<mailto:gragertje@uwec.edu,>, or Bob Nowlan, ranowlan@uwec.edu<mailto:ra
nowlan@uwec.edu>.
Progressive Student Association
Since leading the build-up of opposition on this campus to the impending Ir
aq War from the fall of 2002 onward, the Progressive Student Association (P
SA) has worked hard to serve as the foremost progressive student activist o
rganization here at UWEC. Over the past five years many students intereste
d in acting publicly to help make a difference in efforts directed toward h
uman emancipation, social justice, collective equality, ecological sustaina
bility, and a peaceful world have worked through the Progressive Student As
sociation. PSA has taken the lead in making things happen, in organizing l
ocal efforts right here at UWEC to work, and to fight, for progressive soci
al change. PSA is the kind of organization that is very much open to new c
ontributions, new ideas, new energy, and new focuses. PSA is an umbrella o
rganization welcoming enthusiastic, energetic activists of all kinds - from
left-liberal Democrats to Greens to Anarchists to Socialists and more. R
ight now we are in need of more students to become actively involved; we ha
ve recruited a number of prospects at the recent Blugold Organizations Bash
, but I want to strongly encourage you to in turn strongly encourage progre
ssive students you know to get involved with PSA. We need them. For more
information, contact Dana Thompson, President, thompsod@uwec.edu<mailto:tho
mpsod@uwec.edu> or Bob Nowlan, Faculty Advisor, ranowlan@uwec.edu<mailto:ra
nowlan@uwec.edu>.
Progressive Film and Video Makers
Replacing the now effectively defunct TILT Student Filmmaking Society, Prog
ressive Film and Video Makers is forming, starting this fall, to unite the
efforts of students, staff, faculty, and community members interested in ma
king explicitly progressive movies-and, in particular, movies that activel
y represent, and advance, explicitly progressive values. Documentary, fict
ion, hybrid, and experimental videos are all possibilities. And people can
help out through learning, including from scratch, in any one or more of t
he following areas: writing, shooting, recording, editing, designing, actin
g, directing, producing, distributing, and exhibiting. Again, we have a nu
mber of students, staff, and community members who have already expressed c
onsiderable preliminary interest in being involved with this new organizati
on, which we aim to make an official UWEC student organization this fall, b
ut we could certainly use more help and support--including suggestions of s
pecific ideas for projects, and assistance in gaining access to equipment a
nd other resources that we'll need to make these films and videos. For mo
re information , contact Bob Nowlan, Faculty Advisor, ranowlan@uwec.edu<mai
lto:ranowlan@uwec.edu>.
WHYS-UWEC
In helping represent Eau Claire's independent, alternative, progressive, co
mmunity radio station, WHYS, 96.3 FM, right here on the UWEC campus we are
also forming a brand-new official UWEC student organization, WHYS-UWEC, thi
s fall as well. Students who become involved can learn more about radio br
oadcasting, production, promotion, fundraising, and working closely with di
verse local and extra-local non-profit, progressive, community-based organi
zations and initiatives. They also can work to help forge strong connectio
ns between WHYS and musicians, artists, scholars, teachers, students, and o
ther newsmakers based at UWEC. They can furthermore work to help promote a
nd strengthen the development of local-including UWEC campus-musical and cu
ltural production and performance, as well as local (again including UWEC)
news and public affairs radio reporting and broadcasting. And, finally, th
ey can work to help find ways to make WHYS a central part of everyday life
on the UWEC campus and to forge collaborative connections between WHYS and
other broadcast media on campus and in the greater Eau Claire community. A
lthough I've just mentioned students as our principal initial target audien
ce for membership in this new organizational initiative, progressive facult
y and staff at UWEC are also certainly welcome to help us out as well, incl
uding in realizing some of the prospective goals for what our organization
might do that I've sketched above. For more information, contact Student C
o-Coordinators, Brendon Hertz, hertzbj@uwec.edu<mailto:hertzbj@uwec.edu>, a
nd Chris Malina, malinacd@uwec.edu<mailto:malinacd@uwec.edu>, or Bob Nowlan
, Faculty Advisor and WHYS Coordinator/Facilitator, ranowlan@uwec.edu<mailt
o:ranowlan@uwec.edu>.
ACLU-UWEC
Starting this fall 2007 semester the Chippewa Valley chapter of the America
n Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is seeking to establish an official ne
w student organization here at UWEC, ACLU-UWEC. Students involved with AC
LU-UWEC will represent the ACLU and its now nearly century-long mission of
fearlessly defending freedom everywhere right here on campus, at UWEC, and
work in close collaboration with the Chippewa Valley Civil Liberties Union,
the Wisconsin Civil Liberties Union, and the American Civil Liberties Unio
n. This work may well include helping out in hosting visiting speakers, as
well as helping out in organizing on-campus workshops, forums, teach-ins,
creative productions and performances, rallies, marches, vigils, and other
protests and actions focusing on fighting back whenever our fundamental civ
il liberties-and human rights-are under attack, right here in Eau Claire or
anywhere in our community, state, and nation. And, again, although progr
essive UWEC students are our principal initial target audience for members
hip in this new organization, we welcome UWEC staff and faculty as well as
community members to help out as well. For more information contact: Bob N
owlan, Faculty Advisor and Chippewa Valley Civil Liberties Union Vice-Presi
dent, ranowlan@uwec.edu<mailto:ranowlan@uwec.edu>, or Jeremy Gragert, Chipp
ewa Valley Civil Liberties Union Board of Directors, gragerje@uwec.edu<mail
to:gragerje@uwec.edu>, or Hannah Lott, provisional ACLU-UWEC President, at
lotthn@uwec.edu<mailto:lotthn@uwec.edu>.