As the year draws to a close, some groups and organizations on campus will take a break over the summer. However, the Unconventional Activist Alliance (UAA) at WTAMU is striving to gain support and make a change over the course of the break, as well as throughout the coming year.
“The UAA isn’t here to gain members and tell students what to do,” Melissa Hanson, senior Math Education major and UAA vice president, said. “We’re here so that any and all students can come together to achieve a common goal that will better our community.”
UAAs’ mission is to bring all students together to better the community. Their goal is to become the largest and most versatile campus organization within the next three years.
“It is my hope and my expectation that the UAA will be very well recognized within the next few years, and I believe that the whole unconventional aspect of the group will really shine through in the things that we will do,” Founder and President of the UAA, Roper Kerby, said.
The UAA is not a closed group and have no limits as to how many members they can have. They invite everyone to be a part of the group.
“The UAA is just a bunch of students getting together to work and help the community, and everyone around that we can,” Hanson said. “It’s open to everyone, and we want as many people as possible. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you do, we just want everyone to be a part of it. We really like to have creative ways just to help people out.”
The organization was originally known as the Student Activism Acting Fun club (SAAF), but has since changed their name to better suit their purpose.
“The name has changed because the game and the reasoning behind the group has changed,” Kerby said. “No longer is it about the students, as much as it is about what the students can do. With SAAF, the name was difficult to explain, and it didn’t really make any sense, so we switched to the UAA, and now we’ve come to the realization that we can achieve activism more effectively, and not screw it up.”
The atmosphere that surrounds UAA is loose and relaxed, according to Kerby, as
meetings are not mandatory and made completely up of volunteers.
“It’s a very loose commitment, “ Kerby said. “We’re not going to throw out some penalty on a member who missed a meeting or something. The UAA is entirely made up of volunteers, and we’re not here to make anyone do anything. If you can only show up to one meeting a month, we would rather have that then have you not show up at all.”
Freshman Computer Science major, and co-founder of the UAA, Phalen Steward, said that having a President of the organization acting as more of an organizer is beneficial by helping the group to stay together and work things out.
“Roper really helps everything stick together, and he knows what he’s doing,” Steward said. “He’s like the peanut-butter to our sandwich, and peanut-butter and confidence go hand in hand.”
Kerby assures all students that joining the UAA is nothing complicated, and can be a great way to meet new people and work together for a common good.
“Becoming a part of the UAA is so dramatically, incredibly simple. So simple, in fact, that one can be an official member just by showing up to a meeting,” Kerby said. “Of course we’d love to have all of our members genuinely interested, and willing to put their time and effort in.
Kerby said he was already excited for next year and to see what the new organization will be able to do for the community.
“We already have plans for next year that we have set out and that I think will be very surprising, and while very safe and everything like that, I think we’ll be very engaging and will be able to draw in a lot of people that want to participate in activism, without fitting the role of a stereotypical activist.”
UAA meetings are held every Monday at 9:00 pm in the JBK Senate Chamber, room 16. The UAA encourages students to join, and says that they will definitely draw strength from numbers, and are not always strictly business.
“The UAA isn’t all about just service and stuff,” Steward said. “They have lots of crazy fun events, like throwing sponges at a guy in a banana suit, sack races, and even movie nights. I think students can expect to see and hear more from the UAA in the coming semester, and I think that membership is sure to increase.”
