In recent years, many students at Iowa State have displayed voices of activism about campus, national and international issues.

On Tuesday night about six people represented their student groups by attending an activist conference in the Campanile Room of the Memorial Union.

Ryan Bergman, president of Students For A Free Tibet and senior in community and regional planning, facilitated the meeting which allowed various ISU activist groups to meet each other and exchange ideas on eliciting change.

Among the groups represented at the conference were Students For A Free Tibet, Amnesty International, Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), Environmental Awareness for the Inter-Residence Hall Association (IRHA), Ames/ISU Greens and The Drummer.

Some topics of discussion included protests, boycotts, letter-writing, civil disobedience, contacting government representatives and activism on the ISU campus.

The representatives introduced their groups and discussed successful means of activism.

Students For A Free Tibet, an ISU group founded in 1990, has grown rapidly since its debut, Bergman said.

“I would have to say that we are getting a lot of support so fast because of all the publicity that has been out recently concerning Tibet,” he said. “The Tibetan Freedom Concert and various movies such as ‘Seven Years In Tibet’ and ‘Kundun’ have raised awareness, and people want to get involved.”

Bergman said the group believes that protests and interaction with law enforcement are noble acts. In fact, Students For A Free Tibet even set up a special fund for use as bail money when an activist is arrested.

Students involved in the organization’s ISU branch are primarily involved with letter-writing and occasional protests around the state and country.

Mike Pitula, chair of Environmental Awareness for IRHA and junior in environmental science, oversees environmental programs in the residence halls such as recycling. In addition to his seat on IRHA, Pitula is involved in the Vegetarian Club, the Anthropology Club and Critical Mass.

Amnesty International has two main goals, according to Naomi Bremer, president of the ISU chapter.

She said one goal is to promote awareness of human rights and to write “urgent action” letters to other countries addressing instances of human rights abuse.

She added that human rights cases range from unjust imprisonment and death threats on journalists to torture and execution.

“We have petitioned against the reinstatement of the death penalty in Iowa and sent letters to our Congressmen to voice our opinions. We also show films and sponsor speakers and events, which raise the awareness about human rights,” Bremer said.

The Ames/ISU Greens functions to protest incidents in the Middle East. The group has recently held meetings and rallies about the current crisis in Iraq.

“If [the United States] decides to start bombing, we are going to hold a prayer and candlelight vigil in protest. We also have forums about sanctions and problems in the Middle East,” said Starlene Rankin, representative for the group.

One of the organization’s other goals is to create an independent political movement to promote ecological wisdom, social justice, grassroots democracy and nonviolence.

The Drummer, an ISU campus newspaper, provides an alternative media source on campus with a progressive viewpoint.

“The paper was started in 1991 [by] protesting the Gulf War by covering issues that were being avoided in other media,” said Noel Hvitved, representative for The Drummer.

All group representatives agreed at Tuesday’s meeting that the main problem organizations face is difficulty in finding and reaching people who want to get involved.