Renovating the Forum

On May 7, the Harvard undergraduate progressive community will come together at 45 Mt. Auburn to decide the fate of the Harvard Social Forum (HSF). At that meeting, affiliate groups will decide on a vision for the house that HSF runs, a structure for their coalition, and a plan for moving forward. In some ways, the fate of the progressive community will be decided during that meeting.

The slate has been wiped clean. Here’s what we have: over 25 energetic, successful progressive groups and a building on Mt. Auburn Street with four or five large rooms, a kitchen, a huge basement, and offices upstairs. What are we going to do?

I won’t claim that I have all the answers, but my hope is that on May 7 progressive leaders will come to 45 Mt. Auburn and create the Harvard Progressive Alliance, a coalition that will develop the building into a vibrant center for progressive activism while encouraging dialogue and collaboration amongst member groups. To get there, or anywhere else, our community needs to have a long and complicated conversation about what it wants to do with itself, how it wants to use this space, and how these groups want to interact with each other for the next two, five, and even 20 years. With the intention of starting that conversation now, I present here a vision, a structure and four principles that I believe could guide the progressive community toward an energetic, diverse, and collaborative existence.

Imagine a miniature Phillips Brooks House for progressive activism: meeting rooms, a lounge, a library, a computer lab, a café, and offices to be used by all the members of the coalition. Students coming and going all day, having conversations in the lounge about Dewey and DuBois, going to a training session on organizing in one of the meeting rooms, working in their office on the logistics for their coming event, cooking a meal in the kitchen. It may sound utopian, but the only things that stand in our way are effort and money, both of which can be organized quite effectively here at Harvard. We have the people, we have the house; the question is simply whether or not we have the will.

The first step towards this vision will be deciding on a structure. For the first year of HSF’s existence, the coalition was essentially anti-hierarchy. There were no elected positions and decisions were essentially made by whoever showed up at Coordinated Committee meetings. As a result, affiliate groups were often unclear about what HSF was doing, unenthusiastic about some of its decisions, and generally not invested in its governance. Affiliate meetings were often attended, but plans seemed to change month to month as leadership came and went.

To bring consistency and investment, the Progressive Alliance would need a few leading officers, elected by and accountable to the affiliate groups. Those affiliate groups would express their will at monthly meetings of a Progressive Council composed of representatives from each. They would elect a Director to facilitate that meeting and the Alliance in general, a Treasurer to handle Alliance fundraising and spending, a House Development Chair to work on repairing, furnishing and populating the building, a Dialogue Chair to plan trainings, panels, and discussions, and a Collaboration Chair to work with groups to facilitate, well, collaboration. This structure might seem a little weighty, but we’re not going to get anywhere by just hoping someone will take responsibilities and stick with it.

Beyond a vision and a structure, we need more general principles that will allow us to define the coalition and how it will function. I offer four:

Define progressivism broadly. The most valuable and difficult thing about the term “progressive” is that it is so broad and hard to define. The challenge, then, for the community, is to allow that broadness, to incorporate disagreeing voices under this general term. The groups that are already a part of the coalition represent this broadness well. We need to remember to reaffirm this diversity as a fundamental virtue. The best way to divide the community would be to define progressivism narrowly.

Limit the Harvard Progressive Alliance from taking direct political action. The Alliance should facilitate action by others, but never take action on its own. Making this provision will help to make the Alliance inclusive and broad, while limiting the responsibilities it would have to try to take on. If the Alliance itself were to take on direct action, every monthly meeting would simply be a massive debate.

Remember that development requires investment. Groups cannot expect to have the benefits of the Alliance and the use of the house without investing time and money. Affiliate groups will have to pay dues and elbow grease. Four or five elected leaders won’t be able to make this house and coalition work on their own.

Think long-run and beyond the confines of Harvard. Developing the Progressive Alliance is more important than what 50 or 100 or 500 of us will experience in the next year or two. It will impact the Harvard community, and therefore progressives entering the world with tremendous power by virtue of the “H” on their diploma, for years to come. Keeping this in mind is important, because immediate benefits won’t always be clear.

It’s possible that nothing will happen on May 7. Disagreement or competing visions could bog the group down in the process. That’s why it’s so important that this conversation happens before that meeting. Others who disagree with this plan should put their ideas forward, debate, discuss, synthesize. Democracy can’t function in a matter of hours and the decisions we have to make are too big to be postponed or ignored. So let’s get to work.

Andrew H. Golis ’06, is a social studies concentrator in Winthrop House. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.