The Legacy of Student Activism

International Affairs Forum to host event featuring NMC student leaders and guest speakers

By Ren Brabenec | April 12, 2025

“It’s a physical letter to your representative,” Alex Tank says when asked to define the word “protest.”

As the director of the Traverse City International Affairs Forum (IAF), Tank and a group of students on the IAF Student Leadership Team have been working together for months, studying student-led activism and protest movements from the past to the present.

On April 17, at Milliken Auditorium at the Dennos Museum Center, members of the IAF Student Leadership Team will host an event designed to plumb the depths of how activism, protests, and students’ roles in movements for social, economic, and environmental betterment have shaped not just the United States, but the world.

Student Leader: Amanda Allen

Amanda Allen is an NMC student in her fourth semester. Interested in political science and economics, Allen joined the IAF Student Leadership Team at the invitation of former IAF director Jim Bensley.

Allen begins by describing why her team selected student activism as the event theme. “Students have historically led the way in movements that produced foundational changes in human societies,” she says. “It’s important to understand what past activism and protests accomplished and how they were successful, so we can apply those same lessons today.”

Allen references the primarily youth-led movement towards tackling climate change and preserving the environment. Though she conceded the U.S. has some ground to make up in this area, on an international level, she notes that those movements played a huge role in pushing for legally binding agreements like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement.

The positive effects students have had on this issue don’t stop there. According to Allen, the sheer width and breadth of humankind’s knowledge about climate change is primarily the result of student-led efforts.

“Compared to other issues that we’ve been studying for generations but still don’t know much about, humans have learned a lot about climate in a relatively short time,” Allen says. “That research was driven by young people, who then pressured governments to fund climate initiatives in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Student Leader: Mattathias Kithinji

Mattathias Kithinji is an international student from Kenya and the President of the Student Government Association at NMC. Given his global background and his interest in politics and government, he was quickly drawn to the IAF Student Leadership Team.

To Kithinji, some of the most effective civil rights victories never would have come about had it not been for student-led protest movements. Kithinji has studied the effects of protests throughout history and across nations in an effort to find blueprints for successful activism.

“There is a lot of civil unrest in the world right now,” Kithinji says. “Ukraine-Russia, Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Rwanda, DRC, Turkey—the list goes on. We need young people to lead the charge in resolving these issues.”

Kithinji begins ticking off on his fingers protest movements he believes have lessons for today’s students.

“The 1964-1965 UC Berkeley Free Speech Movement inspired students to speak up on the issues of the day, which led to major victories for civil rights. The 1970 Kent State Vietnam War protests formed a turning point in how the nation approached the war. The Umbrella Protests in 2014 and 2019 made the world aware of Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy.”

To Kithinji, students provide a unique perspective on social, cultural, economic, political, and international issues. And given that they are the leaders of tomorrow, Kithinji says students should have a say in what that tomorrow looks like.

IAF Director: Alex Tank

Both Allen and Kithinji express immense gratitude for IAF Director Alex Tank, saying none of the students’ efforts would have come to fruition had it not been for the director’s support, guidance, and mentorship.

Tank says it’s a joy to work with students on IAF projects and events.

“Students offer an opportunity for us all to look at today’s issues with a fresh perspective,” Tank tells us. “They have the benefit of not having accumulated a lifetime of defeats and repression. Young people tend to see the world a little more idealistically, and to them, it’s more about solving problems rather than just surviving through the hardship those problems create.”

According to Tank, students hold up a mirror to the world and demand older adults see it for what it is.

“Student-led protests create an awareness that becomes irrefutable,” Tank said. “The erosion of human and civil rights that students are protesting become unavoidable for us to look at. The issues become so loud they cannot possibly be ignored, and that’s because young people are steeped in the process of learning and taking action. Older people often don’t have the time and energy to get into these issues, but they’re made to pay attention and to act when students make the issues they’re mobilizing around simply unignorable for the rest of us.”

Event Details

Set for Thursday, April 17, 2025, Echoes of Change: The Legacy of Student Activism will be hosted at Dennos Museum Center, Milliken Auditorium, 1701 E. Front St. in Traverse City. A reception is set for 5:30pm, the event will run from 6:30-7:30pm, and there will be a 15-minute Q&A afterward. In-person admission is $15/person, $10 for virtual admission, or free for students, educators, active-duty military, and IAF members.

IAF has also announced several satellite partnerships for the streaming of the event in locations across northern Michigan: the Old Art Building in Leland and the Zonta Club, which will meet to stream the event at the Rogers City Presque Isle District Library.

Event Guests and Keynote Speakers

When asked what attendees can expect from the event, Tank said it will be a unique, hybrid production combining in-person speakers and panelists moderated by students, plus pre-recorded video interviews produced and edited entirely by the IAF Student Leadership Team in collaboration with NMC’s Audio Technology Program.

Once IAF’s student organizers decided to focus on student-led protest movements, they set to work sourcing interviews with academics and activists who could speak to the importance of protest activity locally, nationally, and globally. The event will include in-person keynote speaking segments and video interviews with:

Danielle K. Brown, Ph.D., a scholar of social movements, will be joining students on stage at the event. Brown is the 1855 Community and Urban Journalism Professor and an associate professor in the School of Journalism at Michigan State University. Brown specializes in analyses of media representations and narrative change, social movements and activism, and identity and political psychology.

Tim Keenan, of Veterans for Peace, will be contributing a video interview where he will provide a local voice and an exploration into the anti-Vietnam War protests which reverberated through American culture.

Howard Choy, Ph.D., will be featured in a pre-recorded video interview. Dr. Choy will illuminate his direct experience supporting his students at Hong Kong Baptist University during the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement protests in 2014 and 2019.

Mark Tessler, Ph.D., a professor of politics at the University of Michigan, will speak to the socio-political underpinnings of the Arab Spring and Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the student and youth-led protests surrounding those events.

Photo: Mitchell Mosley (L) and Amanda Allen (R) volunteering at an IAF event as members of the Student Leadership Team.