Activism at Ohio Wesleyan University
He maintained that the college was a product of the liberality of the people of Delaware, and it was fortunate that Ohio Wesleyan was founded in a community divided in religious and political opinions; Thomson believed that the friction of a mixed society prevented dogmatism and developed energy.
[7] Thomson stated in the early days of Wesleyan that a college education should be a barrier to avarice by furnishing "the understanding, the taste, and the perspective that directs us to life's higher purposes ...
It would serve political tranquillity, both by accrediting the truly apt candidates for office and by creating citizenry astutely able to assert its liberty against any government's tendency to encroach".
[9] In 1857 he denounced the argument that southern Christians The Underground Railroad, used as a "transportation system" for anti-slavery activists to free black slaves fleeing from the South to Canada, was extensively utilized in Ohio.
[10] One of the state's most frequently used corridors on the Underground Railroad passed through Delaware County near Ohio Wesleyan University, now marked along the bikeway trail at U.S.
[13] Branch Rickey, a 1903 graduate of Ohio Wesleyan, is regarded as a significant figure in the history of professional baseball for breaking the sport's racial barrier.
[14] A racial incident early in Rickey's life when he was as a baseball coach for Ohio Wesleyan in 1910 would play an important role in his decision thirty years later.
[22] The commission's report recommended four criteria that OWU's educators should foster: perception, critical judgement, enjoyment, and active responsibility for the problems of society.
[22] On "active responsibility for the problems of society", the report stated, "A socially concerned individual who had no capacity for enjoyment, who exercised glib and trite rather than critical judgement, and who had no perception of reality, would be a public menace.
[23] WCSA became involved in the first major controversy on the Wesleyan campus in the 1960s: its representatives called for the elimination of academic credit and existence for ROTC and demanded access to the university's budget and general financial statements.
A small minority had been concerned with the war for several years, but the bombing of North Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964 raised campus-wide awareness almost overnight.
[24] The Vietnam War, so distant, became a huge presence on campus, affected ideas of community, student power, and free speech, and influenced daily decisions like class choices and social interactions.
In December, the Wesleyan Council of Student Affairs voted to send a letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson opposing the expansion of the war and advocating withdrawal.
[34][35][36][37] In April 2002 about a hundred Wesleyan students gathered on The Mall in Washington, D.C. during a weekend of protests for an array of causes, including the Middle East crisis, and also to denounce lending policies of the World Bank.
[38] In February 2003 approximately 100 OWU students travelled to New York City to protest US actions in Iraq, with partial funding from the Wesleyan Chaplain's office.
[36] During Ohio Wesleyan University Against the War on October 5 and November 17, 2004, more than one hundred students held peace rallies in front of Delaware's City Hall.
[34] On March 17, 2005, the Student Union on Black Awareness (SUBA) and the College Democrats organized a protest on Sandusky Street in Delaware against racial injustice on campus and in the country.
[40] Established in 1984, the SNC annually spotlights an issue of concern in the liberal arts — the impact of science on society, race and reality, censorship and power, and the role of globalization.
