Civil disobedience a must in class
Unity College class makes you 'get it' following convictions -- legally

By CRAIG CROSBY
Staff Writer

Sunday, December 24, 2006

UNITY -- Stephenie McGarvey figured if her display were going to generate real discussion, real change, it had to be just visible enough to give people a nudge, rather than a shove over the cliff.

Protesting what she perceived to be Unity College's glass ceiling -- the invisible barrier preventing women from advanced positions and pay -- McGarvey depicted her evidence on a series of glass windows. There were even panels with shattered glass, symbolizing women breaking through the ceiling.

Without a march, without so much as an opinion piece in the school newspaper, McGarvey displayed the windows all over campus, including one outside President Mitchell S. Thomashow's office, and waited for students' curiosity to do the rest.

"People started talking about it and the buzz was created," McGarvey said.

By the end of the semester, McGarvey's windows had earned her lunch with Thomashow, and a promise from the school's human resources department that it will brief search committees on the problem.

Among the student body, the diversity committee, which had been dormant, will be resurrected when classes resume in January and the Women's Environmental Leadership Programs hopes to use McGarvey's display as a springboard for campuswide forums.

"The most I had ever done was very conventional actions toward change, like writing letters," said McGarvey, a senior environmental policy major. "I had not done any kind of social protest. I was a little dubious about what would happen. It was a lot more than I had hoped for. I was very surprised."

EFFECTING CHANGE

McGarvey's experience is exactly what Unity College associate professor Kathryn Miles had in mind when she first developed the focus for the fall semester's American literature class. From Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau through speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. and Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang," the students read the best-known literature of social protest and civil disobedience ever written in this country.

More than just reading, however, the 18 students in Miles' class had to identify an issue, develop plans to effect change through an act of protest and then carry it out. Some chose well-traveled roads, such as the war in Iraq, while others were moved by the more obscure, such as a Maine law that prohibits owning exotic reptiles.

The project was designed to let the students put into practice the philosophies they read in the books, Miles said. McGarvey, for example, based much of her protest on Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in which King writes, "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust law."

"Now, more than ever, we can't have higher education in a high tower," Miles said. "I really wanted them to do something to make a difference. I feel like we don't have the luxury of keeping academia abstract. I feel like we have to apply it and do something. I think that, by and large, we as a culture, and this age group, tends to be fairly politically apathetic. Sitting back and complaining is just not an option."

CONSEQUENCES

Miles made sure the students understood from the beginning what they would have to do and that there might be consequences. She told the students she did not condone breaking the law, however.

"If they felt they needed to do that, it was fine, but it was going against my wishes for the project," Miles said.

Sophomores Zoe Turcotte and Jake Harr stayed within the law, but pushed their protest well beyond the confines of the college campus.

Protesting for labels on genetically engineered food, Harr and Turcotte earned meetings with Rep. John Piotti, D-Unity, and Gov. John Baldacci during his recent campaign.

The sophomores also are planning a meeting with the governor's wife, Karen Baldacci, which will likely be held following an awareness walk from the college to Augusta.

"I really like social protest when it's productive and real and something that's necessary," said Turcotte, a wildlife biology major. "When I heard about this class I thought it could be a great tie into that and that it would teach me more techniques."

Generating honest, rational discussion was more difficult for Sara Trunzo, who protested the war in Iraq. Students for and against the war hold strong opinions, so Trunzo looked for an approach that would be universally accepted. She settled on the number of coalition soldiers, civilians and even insurgents killed during the war.

"I didn't want to do something that was protesting the war," Trunzo said. "It's kind of useless. I wanted to come at this with a solution as opposed to protesting a problem."

Trunzo settled on a candle display inside the hoop house, a greenhouse that is typically used for growing vegetables. For Trunzo, the house was the perfect venue. Growing vegetables, she said, helps reduce dependence on foreign oil.

The hoop house's plastic walls refracted the candlelight like a lighthouse, appearing from outside as though it were engulfed in flames, thus sparking the students' curiosity.

Trunzo hung signs inside the house with the numbered dead and posing hypothetical questions and waited for the discussion.

"I really wanted it to happen organically," Trunzo said. "People came over to peek their heads in. It really felt like a chapel. And people could tell. When they came in they just started to whisper."

GRADED ON EFFORT

Miles graded the projects based on effort rather than effectiveness. All of the students took the assignment seriously.

"I was universally impressed with what they came up with, both in the implementation of their topics and what they came up with," Miles said.

Many students struggled to know if their protest was justified, McGarvey said. They learned that a strong belief in the changes they were seeking was fundamental to the project's effectiveness, she said. McGarvey is not a protester. She is a woman of convictions.

"It would be a struggle for me to expand the range of my protest or civil disobedience," McGarvey said. "I think I will be looking at how to change society in a different light. I have to believe in what I'm doing to carry it through.

There are other ways besides one-on-one communication to bring awareness and spark change."