Pagan Academic Network:Forums

[llio]

Since we are one of the groups that have been around for a while I thought we could help others who are just starting out. I think it would be particularly helpful for those that started our group in the early 90's to post. I have invited someone that want's to start a group in another state to come join us in our discussions. So hopefully we will have the info they are searching for.

[pablo]

im from seattle
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then bunny * bunny = ???

[orion]

Were there any religious discrimination problems? I know that it was an effort by PAN or PAN's members that got "pagan" included as a demographic option for Purdue students.

Depending on the school, it might be handy to know the contact info for the local ACLU branch

I know that in the past we've had trouble with the Christian student organizations organizing groups to remove our flyers from campus when we were advertising events or callouts. Choosing good places to advertise might prevent that, like any campus bookstore that has occult books (sometimes owners will let you place a flyer on the relevant shelves), or coffee shops. You could also use covert advertisements like advertise a book discussion for Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon, or Silver Ravenwolf's To Ride a Silver Broomstick.

There are sometimes existing clubs which are pagan friendly, such as any Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) groups (or medieval clubs) you may have on campus. Polling them for interested people may be an easy way to get some members before you attempt to attract the campus at large.
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There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who read binary, and those who dont.

[administrator]

I polled some of the area student groups to see what troubles they ran into in starting their groups. Here's the reply from IUPUI's Pagan Student Union:

[orion]

Here's a very relevant page I found while trying to update our links after the URL change:

http://www.pfpc.ca/en/people/family/student.html
_________________
There are 10 types of people in the world:
Those who read binary, and those who dont.

[llio]

Hey guys! I don't want to call you out or anything, but please help out with this topic... I wasn't around back then... I know how I would approach it, but actual experience is much preferred... I am fortunate to have our group already set up and ready to go for me! Others are not so lucky (expecially at a Christian private college!).

My biggest tip is to be positive. People have real concerns and worries about "paganism"... Relating it to Satanism, animal sacrifice, etc... I think the way to go about it productively is to address those concerns, reflect their feelings associated with Paganism... "I realize that you are scared and frightened of Paganism, mostly due to the preconceived notions of what it is. What kind of questions do you have that would aleviate those fears and worries?" If they can't come up with their own questions, I would just throw out the Satan thing... I think that that is our biggest hurdle in explaining Paganism/Witchcraft... Also WITCH... is a big ouchy word for muggles. I would stick with safe words like nature religion, Pagan, polytheistic, because many people do have some correct thought associated with these words, just not Witch, Wicca, Witchcraft, etc...

I hope this helps...

[n9mtb]

[djennma]

Okay, I promised when I got the time I'd post. As I'm trying to avoid laundry at the moment, this is the PERFECT time!

Any of you who've been to PAN in the last year or so has heard me give the "Djenn-version" of "what-PAN-was-like-in-the-early-days", but I'll shorten it up for here: In 1992 I started Purdue and met up w/some wonderful people who shared my view of fun (the SCA/Purdue's "Medieval Society"), and within that group, I met a couple named Wendy (Hetrick) and Sean (Cannon). Through them (and more specifically, their "handfasting"!) I met even MORE wonderful people who were interested in this "Wicca/Witchcraft" thing I'd been reading about while I was away overseas as a high school exchange student (Australia isn't as uptight about religion as the good ol' USA is). So this group of people (who I (much) later found out through Saorise was the former coven of "Our Lady of the Hourglass"!) got together during the Sabbats (and whenever we felt like it, really!) and had private rituals--usually w/each person trying to hold one! Well, to make a condensed story even shorter--we all sat around the Cages in the Union (the now-defunct smoking area) and talked about how great it would be to have ONE group for all of us to meet in--not only so we could meet and encourage new folk, but also so we wouldn't have to try and take entire weeks off to celebrate the Sabbats w/everyone!

So there, in those conversations, the seed for PAN was started. Wendy took up the idea w/the Office of Student Affairs and got the group going, if memory serves--I wasn't there in the VERY first couple of years(while PAN was doing most of its original imploding and exploding--looked kind of like the "Big-Bang" theory of the creation of the Universe in Interpretive Dramatic form!!) because I was usually busy Sundays getting my homework done for school and whatnot! But I became a lot more active w/in PAN around 1994/1995 with the "2nd Wave" PANites. During that time we had a Druidic group, a co-ed Sabbat group, a Women's Sabbat group, a Men's Sabbat group (which was formed for parity! ), and an Eastern Philosophy group. At the time, we kept separate factions w/in the group, since we saw ourselves as more of an "umbrella" for several small groups than as a single cohesive group. Many members of the Druidic group, for example, also participated in the Mixed Sabbats, and if they were women they participated in the Women's Sabbat too. So this structure kind-of worked, but eventually fell in because, well, so many people were interested in so many things that it was rather silly to break into small groups! The remnants of the Druidic group went on to help found our beloved White Pines Circle (for a full story, go and see Cc's webpage (found in the Links section of the PAN page), and with the changing socio-political climate nowadays (back then, it was a LOT more hostile toward not just pagans, but women in general--you'd literally be laughed out of a police station for trying to bring rape charges against someone or bringing up sexual harrassment charges against a professor who leered at you in class...), the Women's group just seems, well, to be missing something! :/ (at least, to me it does! )

This groups seems to differ widely from year to year--to the point that you can talk about different periods in its history as the "Jenn-and-Kat" period, the "Cc" period , the "Shelley" period, the "Ruth" period, the "Melissa-and-Diana" period...you get the point! And part of that is the nature of a student-group, since it has a constantly changing pool of people from which to draw members! But I think, given how LONG this group has endured (and all of the things it has endured thus far to stick around!), that it will always be a part of Purdue and Lafayette/West Lafayette culture...whether the "mundanes" like it, or not!

Okay, I've rambled a bit long here...later!
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"I believe in everything, nothing is sacred. I believe in nothing, everything is sacred." --Tom Robbins, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues"

[saoirse]

As one of the "first wavers" I figure I might dredge the memory banks and see what I can find.

Ummmmmmmmm...we were kind of unfocused there at the beginning (y'know, growing pains and all that) but I also remember it being just a great way to meet new pagans whom we never thought existed in the Lafayette area.

If I remember correctly (and I may not ) most of the ritualizing got shunted to Hourglass, which grew from (at my initiation in the long ago year of '91) 5 members to something around 20ish. This is why ('scuse me for gettin' on my soapbox here) if you're gonna start a student group, my biggest advice is:if and when you form a ritual group, DO NOT make it a coven, make it a WORKING GROUP. That way, if coven members come and go (and they will) or personality clashes happen (and they will), a certain fluidity is retained. No one says you can't form a breakaway coven if you want to. (Though if you do, be sure to retain the original working group for those who may not have been invited to join the coven.)
This is an *inclusive* framework, which, in the long run will work out with MUCH less drama, and appease the gods of political correctness at the same time.
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Thank you for flying Church of England, cake or death?
-eddie izzard-

[saoirse]

Okay folks it's been rather dead in here

But, I have found another resource for those starting a group.

Of all things, someone has wrote a book! Though we have to forgive him for misspelling "Purdue" with an 'e'

Browsing in Borders yesterday I found this book called "Rocking the Goddess."
Yeah yeah it's a cheesy name, but it was enough to make me pick it up.
Anyway, I'll zip through it and if it's any good, I'll send it on to Djenn
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Thank you for flying Church of England, cake or death?
-eddie izzard-

[wendy]