YearlyKos Student Caucus - Students needed!

The first thing one notices upon coming into the Student Caucus, and in fact the entire Yearly Kos convention, is the fact that there are very few actual students here at the Convention.

Despite this, the Student Caucus turned out to be one of the most interesting and talked about Caucuses here at the Convention.

As mentioned earlier in other diaries, the Caucus Meetings are meant to be an unstructured discussion where there can be a natural flow of ideas about issues the participants care about.

As everyone introduced themselves around the room, I noticed as Moderator/Facilitator and as a college student the room was decidly older than I expected. Representatives from the Progressive Patriots Fund, People for the American Way, Campus Progress, The Internationalist, Advocates for Youth, and even a reporter from the Weekly Standard. The room looked like an incredible, ideal place for networking for Progressive students but unfortunately there were very few present.

One of the first topics discussed was High School students. A High School teacher from Gainesville, FL named Terri organizes IB students at her school to get involved in the political process and she has even pledged that next year she will bring a team of volunteers from her High School to come and make the next YearlyKos as successful as this one has been. High School students can be an important part of the netroots and recruiting volunteers for candidates. They are commonly overlooked because of their lack of financial resources and experience but they can and hopefully will make a difference.

Another factor discussed was more coordination among Progressive groups on campuses and in communities around the country. Campus Progress is doing a lot of organizing on campuses around the country and the Social Justice Center in BC is doing similar work coordinating different single-issue groups so that a greater Progressive agenda can move forward.

Unfortunately, without a large number of students present, a lot of groups have been left to network with each other (not necesarily a bad thing) and with the next generation of Progressive leaders.

The Student Caucus was a great discussion of student issues and would have been an incredible place for students to meet a number of people from different groups and move themselves and their career forward in the greater movement. It is unfortunate that because of a lack of students this was not the case.

Hopefully next year there will be more participation from students like myself who see themselves working in the Progressive community and for Progressive issues for the next 30 or 40 years. This is a long-term movement that is going to change America. Let's hope next year that everyone involved remembers the first and most important step is "showing up" and everyone who wants to come and make a difference can and will.

-Alexander Barrio, guest blogging for Cream Puff as my own handle (AlexanderJ) is still under the weeklong approval process.
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL