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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 4, 1986)
W/YIVll*: overcoming an image problem By Tamara Bell Staff Writer SwAMP is returning to the A&>M campus. After a one-year hiatus dur ing which “Students Working Against Many Problems” un derwent a major overhaul, the group is back, working to re duce poverty in the Bryan/Col lege Station area. When SWAMP started four years ago, the founding friends had no real goals, says Dave El lis, president of the organiza tion. If they saw an issue on campus they liked, they’d work to solve it, or at least bring it to the attention of the student body. Ellis says their main ob jective was to get people to laugh. ack when we started, A<SpM was narrow minded and conservative,” he says. “Any male caught wear ing WillieWear on campus was considered a homosexual. We wanted to establish a new group of people. We weren’t satisfied with the school’s good ole’ boy image, and I’m not be ing derogatory. Everyone fitted into a mold four years ago. “Not only did we want to break the mold, but we wanted to get people to laugh on cam pus be cause everyone always takes school and themselves too seriously.” In order to hear the sound of laughter, SWAMP sponsored a car. show one semester, Ellis says. It was an unusual show because only banged up cars could enter. The group also es tablished the Jerry Falwell Fed eration of Religious Youth (FRY) with the goal of burning books. t was a satirical look at a serious problem,” Ellis says. “The police threatened to arrest us if we burned a book on campus. That was encour aging. We also conducted a pro- nuclear war day when missiles were moved into Europe. “These activities were de signed to get students to under stand they shouldn’t feel threat ened by opposing view points. Why does a student believe this particular belief? And the best way to get people to listen is through laughter.” pilUI^b ClllU UUICDUUIVO me ceiling, and recently, in re- —- When members of Students Working Against Many Prob lems (SWAMP) announced their intention of walking of the MSC grass in November of 1984, about 1,000 students showed up to prevent the group from carrying out its plan. As the club’s membership ex panded, the group drew up a platform. One of their first tar get areas was making students aware of the need to question traditions. The grass incident in Novem ber 1984 caused quite a stir on the campus, Ellis says. Mem bers of SWAMP held an open forum in front of Rudder Tower in which they publicly pro tested against the tradition of not walking on the grass. Ellis says they picked this particular action to point out student apathy on campus and get people thinking, not just blindly following the leader. So, they .were surprised when about 1,000 students showed up to form a to prevent SWAMP from sitting on the grass. “Now, about 1,000 people can claim they kept people from walking on the grass,” he says. “Wow.” ven though Ellis sees the activity as a success, he says it’s not the most significant un dertaking the organization has been involved in. The group sponsored Free Speech Week a month before the grass inci dent. One of the groups sched uled to speak was the Gay Stu dent Organization. During the week, Ellis says he received threatening phone calls and some members’ homes were broken into. any ciaacia iju ljwu.hi iuhwu, wuu turned down because his grade “You just can’t criticize free speech,” he says, “yet some peo ple would tell us we were tiying to stir up trouble on campus. Now, how can free expression stir up trouble? If free speech can’t be tolerated on a univer- sity campus, then there’s defi nitely something wrong.” Although the free ex pression week was not opposed by the club members, some did oppose sitting on the grass, Ellis says. “Hugh Stearns, a prominent club member at the time, wanted to go on the grass be cause he wanted to make a pro test that A&M was too militaiy and that traditions were dam aging to progress,” Ellis says. “It was my belief that this might have been detrimental to the good relations we’d had so far with many students. There was no need to threaten a me morial to many people. We agreed not to go on the grass. Ellis says the group dis banded after that. “There was just too much bitching,” he says. “We decided SWAMP would be the means to an end. And we help people get to that end.” Ed Brown II, a sophomore English major, says SWAMP used to be a scapegoat for rowdy students who had some thing to prove to themselves. Although he wasn’t a member at the time of the grass inci dent, he says SWAMP may have made some students feel threatened, and they retaliated in the only way they knew how, through macho talk. “I personally didn’t see SWAMP as doing anything neg ative last spring,” he says. “What they did wasn’t wrong but some students felt it was. SWAMP just gave them some thing to yell about.” Brown says he knew the “bad boy” reputation the group had before he joined this year. But, he says, even if SWAMP wasn’t here, people would hear what he has to say. JF’m not radical,” he says, “I still love my mother. I hate categories because they stick you in a slot and you have no chance to grow. I’ve learned that much in my history clas ses.” David Tatege, a senior mar keting major, says he joined SWAMP two vears ago because a friend of his decided to join. He says not everyone who joins SWAMP is a political activist. “I don't necessarily have to make a statement through SWAMP,” he says. “I didn’t want to accomplish anything. I guess I joined for the hell of it.” JiJIowever, some mem bers do want to accomplish something within SWAMP’s format. Yvonne DeGraw, a se nior journalism major, says she joined SWAMP because she was concerned about the conservati- vism at A&M. “I'm from California and I was shocked at the conservati- vism here,” she says. “SWAMP had a booth at the MSC open house and because all the other organizations were passing out flyers, SWAMP decided to pass out their own type of flyers, census data from Chicago.” Ellis says the 30 members of the re-organized SWAMP will have to overcome the stigma of being a radical group. He says students gave them this label without knowing the club helps the community through special projects. One community project the club is working on is the pov erty problem in College Station. Ellis says there are people who live in houses with dirt floors. “My dream goal would be to have the myriad groups on campus like Student Govern ment, religious organizations, Black Awareness and the nutri tion club get involved in this one big project,” he says. “We have the resources here. Wood drives at school are good but they don’t solve the problem. We’re looking for a long term solution.” Ellis says he realizes this would be a major production if he could pull it off. Two years ago the club helped establish an arts society on campus which is responsible for the free art which can be shown outside the Memorial Student Center. So, Ellis thinks this goal is just as attainable. Meridian, -* V " t7 CT- says.