Student Progressives under new leadership

Next year, senior, Noemi Gilbert, will be taking on a role as an organizer of the Student Progressives club.  

“I’ve been a part of Student Progressives since the beginning of this year. My values include working for a better, kinder, more equitable world, and I saw joining student progressives as a way to help.” 

As a club, Student Progressives aims to inspire conversation, education, and community engagement and action around progressive causes.  

“We changed our name from ‘democrats’ to ‘progressives’ to show that our aims aren’t tied to a specific political party, particularly one as flawed and ineffective as the Democratic Party, and are rather about progressive causes as a whole,” Gilbert said. 

Isabella Manhart and Daniel Graham were the previous organizers of student progressives, who have now graduated. “They are both brilliant, kind, dedicated people, who have done so much to build this club, and I’m excited to keep their work going. They had a big focus on engagement, which I’m excited to bring forward by inviting guest speakers and groups from our community.” 

Gilbert does not plan on many changes, although they do have goals for the future of the club. 

“I love the traditions of our club [and don’t plan on changes], unless someone thinks changes should be discussed! My vision for the future of progressives is a group that empowers members to make meaningful local action and a space to engage with new ideas, events, and information.” 

Student Progressives will be active in the summer. “We are planning on finding some local campaigns that align with our values to do volunteer work on, because local elections are some of the most important ways change manifests in individual communities. In addition, we plan to continue the voter registration work we’ve started this year to increase voter turnout among young people,” Gilbert said. 

A Central Conservatives club has recently risen on social media. The account has gained attention, because the Student Republicans club at the school is inactive.” 

“We have not been in contact with the new Central conservatives page,” Gilbert said, “I’m not sure if they’re a club or just a meme page? One post they’ve made seems pretty disrespectful, but I’m still open to connecting with them. We welcome any and all people into our club, and if they want to reach out to collaborate, we’ll absolutely talk about it. The more respectful and nuanced conversations there are in our school, the better.” 

“I’d just want to make sure the environments within those collaborations are safe for all involved. We’re not going to tolerate any sort of demeaning remarks towards our members.”