Student activist network finally 'PAN's out

The Progressive Action Network aims to better coordinate student activism on Penn-related issues. The University has been "pissing off" Peter Chowla for three years. But while the left-wing Wharton and Engineering senior has resisted the campus-wide "apathy" he said plagues the Penn campus by forming the Free Burma Coalition last year, he hasn't yet focused his activism on University-issues. Neither had Penn Environmental Group head Melissa Pfeffer -- until last Friday. With College Green as their stage, Pfeffer and friends formally launched the Progressive Action Network by passing out angry flyers and denouncing the University's "corporate ties." The brainchild of Pfeffer and Chowla, PAN -- which holds its introductory meeting Tuesday night in Houston Hall's Graduate Student Lounge -- will be the first organization in years to protest primarily Penn-related issues. But PAN will not be starting from scratch -- it is already fortified with members of several existing activist organizations. "Most progressive, activist people I know are interested in more than one cause," explained PAN co-founder Maria Arlotto, a College junior representing the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance. One of six groups for which PAN will serve as a pseudo-"umbrella" organization, the LGBA has been instrumental in forming the group. "Penn always seems so apathetic, everyone always seems so interested in themselves," she continued. "This way, we can all come out to support each others' groups." But Arlotto acknowledged that not everyone in the LGBA "wants to be activist in nature" -- and the same, inevitably, holds true for the other five organizations, leaving many aspects of PAN undefined. Specifically, while PAN will serve as an umbrella organization similar to organizations such as the Performing Arts Council, it will not necessarily affect the operations of the groups underneath it. And while phrases like "corporate ties" and the "polarization of wealth" are commonly listed among the founders' grievances, PAN leaders are careful not to take a stance on behalf of the entire group until all of its members have met. "It's kind of up in the air right now with so far as what PAN is going to be, so we kind of decided to leave it open [until the first meeting Tuesday]," said College senior Katie Cooper, a representative from the Penn Environmental Group. One thing is for certain -- the group is "progressive." But exactly what that means has "not yet settled," according to Penn Women's Alliance representative Melissa Goldstein, a College senior. Originally, when "progressive" was not a prerequisite for joining the group, Pfeffer, an Engineering sophomore, e-mailed leaders of about 25 organizations ranging from the Penn Republicans to Hillel about joining a new activist organization. At the same time, Chowla decided to target "progressive groups" for a similar organization, eliminating "more conservative" groups in an attempt to help the fledgling group avoid vast schisms in opinion. Because of the small size of Penn's activist community, Chowla and Pfeffer crossed paths last year and agreed to start the network. But its launch was delayed until the "exciting events of the previous weeks," such as the visit of noted left-wing linguist and political critic Noam Chomsky last week, according to PAN's mission statement. While many PAN members express cynicism and disgust as the widespread apathy of Penn students, the group's founders looked at the demonstration protesting Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to campus three weeks ago as a galvanizing moment for uniting Penn's progressive community. "The protest was really moving," Cooper said. "We had this realization that there is activism on campus, even if it is sparse and it needs something really big like the Chinese president to inspire it." The October 30 demonstration, organized by Amnesty International but also incorporating Free Burma and the Penn Environmental Group, attracted about 75 people -- a number not seen at a student demonstration since the days of the Progressive Students Alliance in the early 1990s. Back in the 1980s and lasting into 1993, the Progressive Students Alliance's raison d'_tre was similar to that of PAN -- protesting decisions by University administrators. In 1990, the PSA protested the "preponderantly white, all male" fraternity presence on Locust Walk during Greek Week. In 1991, the same group held a "Wedding from Hell" during a speech at the Wharton School by then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, in protest of military recruitment and the Air Force investment in the construction of the Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Though such protests have all but disappeared over the last four years, military funding of the now-finished IAST building is again at the forefront of the activists' agendas. And recent issues such as the controversial outsourcing of facilities management to Dallas-based Trammel Crow Co. and the University's continued soliciting of national retail chains are also things PAN hopes the student body will begin "asking questions" about. "I know our group will take a stance on the University's treatment of local businesses," Chowla said. Coining the phrase "the New Jersification of West Philadelphia" to describe University efforts to bring national retail to campus, Chowla criticized the Sansom Common project. "The thing I most want to see happen is for people to realize that there are links between the injustices that are happening," he said. "They all happen because of a few people, a few corporations."

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