"Political activism is simply being done in a way for students to balance their concerns with their personal goals, looking towards their future," Epps says. "It doesn't mean that in that sense they are more conservative. Activism has simply changed in pattern from the ways that dominated the early '70s and late '60s.
COCA, with a transient, fluctuating membership, is typical of many groups on campus. Other groups such as the Peace Alliance, no longer exist, but this year, COCA's membership has grown.
"The group has a lot of new members, so the agenda for the year is open to formulation, "said Doug Brugge, a third-year biology graduate student and longtime organizer in the group. COCA has had a forum and film showing, and plans similar events during the year.
No agenda has been set for demonstrations and the group remains highly flexible, avoiding any monolithic political philosophy. Committees responsible for publishing leaflets and other literature, planning programs and arranging legislative lobbying action, make up the loosely structured group.
The TWSA is perhaps even more flexible. Formed in reaction to the Administration's refusal to list minority student groups Freshman Week events in the calendar, the group has no officers. It remains a coalition based organization made up of representatives from five Third World Groups.
"We focus on certain issues," said Anthony A. Ball '86, group spokesman. "Our main political concerns are giving Third World perspectives more political play in mainstream issues, and educating majority groups."
Like the DSA, COCA and the TWSA, many of the membership would call themselves Democrats and support Mondale. But few belong to the Democratic Club as well.
"We see ourselves as the left-wing caucus of the Democratic Party," explains Silvers. "We're simply interested in a more radical perspective than the Democratic Party," adds Kim Ladin '87 of DSA.
THE IDEA OF PROVIDING alternatives seems to be the general focus of many politically active groups, particularly the SYL. Rather than working in electoral politics, this fall SYL held a forum on the 1934 Minneapolis strike and showed the film "Labor's Turning Point." Gene Herson, a member of a maritime union in New York, presented a lecture on class struggle and labor action SYL's Marxist class series meets every other Wednesday this term.
"We feel that there is no fundamental difference between the candidates. Both represent certain class interests--those of the capitalist class," says SYL member Thomas Crean '86. "The alternative is to build a workers party, because a bipartisan anti-Soviet war drive can only be defeated through class struggle. We're for a workers' party to build a workers' government."
Michael T. Anderson '84, a SASC alumnus who founded the Endowment for Divestiture and now a member of the Law School Divestment Committee, says he believes that free speech, faculty tenure and divestment will prove to be the dominant issues of President Bok's term, which began in 1971. Anderson says that "the South Africa movement is the one thing [President] Bok can't coopt. Divestment, the Endowment for Divestiture and other efforts really force Bok to act."
The problem with organizing activities is that "we have to fight back and at least speak back, and we don't even have the resources," Anderson says. "We [SASC] are a core group of a half dozen with no money and little access to public space." Other groups say they also suffer from the same lack of resources, people and access.
The Student Freeze Voter movement, which last year held a forum on the nuclear freeze movement, has since been absorbed into Students Waging Peace, a peace group which also took the place of the Peace Alliance, to some extent. And other groups are constantly evolving from other student organizations.
Just this week, a new socialist discussion group was born when D. Joseph Menn '87 received approval for a Harvard-Radcliffe Socialist Forum Says Menn, "I think there is only one serious left voice on campus--the Spartacus Youth League. And so I wanted to bring more groups from the Left here, give people an opportunity to hear more views." Menn says he plans a first forum on "the Socialist Left and Democratic elections" for the weekend before the national election.
But Epps, who has watched student activism change substantially since he was carried out of University Hall in April 1969 by student demonstrators who occupied the building for a night, says he feels student activism--in whatever style--will always be alive at Harvard. "There are several different elements to student culture," Epps says." Right now, I'd say religion, electoral politics, athletics and academics occupy students minds most."
"Harvard has always had student activism, probably because there are so many differences of opinion." Epps continues. "I think here, more than at any other school, it's not who you are, it's what you think that's important."
Says Thomas N. Crean '86 of the Spartacus Youth League, a Marxist revolutionary group: "We feel that there is no fundamental difference between the candidates. Both represent certain class interests--those of the capitalist class. The alternative is to build a workers party, because a bipartisan class struggle can only be defeated through class struggle. We're for a workers' party to build a workers' government."
"We focus on certain issues. Our main political concerns are giving Third World perspectives more political play in mainstream issues, and educating majority groups," says Third World Student Alliance spokesman Anthony A. Ball '86.