Register, vote and represent. This was the message at
Friday’s event held at the UCLA Hammer Museum.
The program focused on promoting student voter participation by
giving free admission to students who registered at the event or
brought another eligible voter to register.
“As UCLA’s museum, we are interested in providing
programming that will not only be about art and culture but will
engage people in social and political and critical dialogue,”
said Sarah Stifler, the head of public programming at the Hammer
Museum.
The program was a part of the newly-established Hammer Forum,
which focuses on engaging students with political issues.
“(The Hammer Forum) is really gearing up to do more of
these in the course of the next year while gearing up for the 2004
election,” Stifler said. “We are really continuously
trying to bridge ourselves and the campus.”
The event included a workshop session with Joseph Wilson, former
U.S. ambassador to Iraq, who discussed the U.S. occupation of Iraq
and how student activism can affect political decisions.
Speakers also discussed the University of California’s
role in the production of weapons of mass destruction at the Los
Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories.
“The first obvious step is to educate yourself. Realize
what it means for one of the best … university systems in the
world to include two nuclear weapons laboratories,” said
Michael Coffey, a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a
student at UC Santa Barbara.
Coffey encouraged students to vocalize their positions on the
UC’s labs at Board of Regents meetings.
Students also attended a screening of Robert Greenwald’s
film, “Unprecedented,” which discusses problems with
the 2000 presidential election.
Students who attended felt more knowledgeable about U.S. and
international politics afterwards.
“The opportunity to see young people coming together with
politicians and see the documentary about how the election was
completely stolen was so eye-opening,” said Angela Mazer a
fourth-year international development studies student.
Musical performances by Dublab DJ’s and Breakestra, among
other bands, followed the workshop sessions.