Student to join organizer institute

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MSU senior Megan O’Brien will spend part of her summer taking a crash course in community organizing.

O’Brien, a social relations and policy and urban and regional planning senior, was accepted into the Direct Action and Research Training Center, or DART, Organizers Institute. The institute focuses on teaching participants techniques for organizing communities around common issues, said Ben MacConnell, recruitment director for DART.

DART is a network of grassroots community organizations throughout six states, MacConnell said.

“Each organization is a coalition of religious congregations, churches, synagogues and mosques who come together to form a grassroots organization to deal with social and justice issues,” he said.

“We focus on issues that join us together around common values — around justice and fairness rather than hot-button issues like abortion or gay rights. That kind of thing divides us — we stay away from that and focus on what brings us together.”

O’Brien is one of 23 people who were chosen out of about 700 applicants.

O’Brien said she heard about the institute from a classmate a couple of years ago. After receiving an e-mail from the James Madison College Listserv, she decided to apply.

“I knew it was something that interested me from the values that it recognized — for the values I was working towards,” she said. “It fell in line with what I wanted.”

O’Brien will begin her training in Indiana this July. The first part of the institute consists of a week of interactive classroom sessions, which will teach the participants skills such as how to identify common issues, conduct research and how to mobilize a community, MacConnell said.

“It’s a week of boot camp,” he said.

After the classroom training, O’Brien will be placed with a DART affiliate for field training, he said.

MSU alumnus Andy Lee also went through the Organizers Institute. Lee is now the lead organizer for Broward Organized Leaders Doing Justice, based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Lee said the institute was the hardest thing he has ever done, but it was worth it.

“The people that are suffering from the problems are perfectly equipped on how to solve them,” Lee said. “What they don’t have is the power and independence to do that — an organization like this empowers people to be a part of solving problems in the communities themselves.”

O’Brien said this is the first step toward a possible career in community organizing.

“I see it as a career for the future,” O’Brien said. “I definitely see it as an incredible opportunity for life in general and especially for a potential career.”

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