The Young American Foundation (YAF) have reclaimed their spot at Long Beach City College by bringing back their club, which is a representation of political conservative viewpoints.
Around two years ago YAF was already an existing club but due to the lack of members and graduating leadership it was unable to withstand.
Now, YAF is back on campus and giving students the opportunity to collaborate with like-minded individuals on topics like politics.
Long Beach City College can be looked at as more of a liberal campus, but with YAF, they are able to share a different viewpoint without judgement.
According to the Foundations website, “Young America’s Foundation is a conservative youth organization, founded in 1969, whose stated mission is “ensuring that increasing numbers of young Americans understand and are inspired by the ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and traditional values.”
President of YAF Taylor-Ryan Hotchkiss explained the benefits of the club’s appearance on campus.
“We want to share conservative principles with the students here on campus and kind of just give conservative students a voice here.” Hotchkiss said.
The club had their first meeting Nov. 3 at 1:00pm located in building T1309, although the meeting was brief, as they were only able to show a short clip on conservatism.
Next semester, they hope that the club will gain more activity so they are able to have deeper discussions on pressing issues and current events.
To get more members to join, Mason Dees, Vice President, listed a few things as a club that they can start doing to spread the word
“Well so obviously the meeting was short notice but I know people that are apart of the club that we see outside of this event so just trying to get them to come, reach out to them personally not just via the YAF organization email and then also maybe advertise by having a stand to talk to people passing by not just on club day but just other events to attract more people.” Dees said.
Dees mentioned that just because a student doesn’t share the same ideologies as YAF, they can still join because although it may be conservative based, it still allows an open place where all ideas and opinions are welcome to be debated about.
Moving forward, Donald Douglas, advisor of YAF shares his hope for the future of the maintenance and direction of the cub.
“As far as the future, it’s up to the students to recruit and make sure there’s a critical mass of about 10 to 20 students that will be here in 2020 and 2021 that are going to be the nucleus of this club, so that all Taylor’s hard work wouldn’t go to waste like previous years. Also, maybe in the future we will have more interclub dialogues or panels with not just students but professors as well to break down those barriers. There are a lot of educated people on campus, there is no need to always have a speaker,” said Douglas
For now, the club will only be meeting once a month.
The next meeting will be held on Dec 6 in the same room, T1309 at 1:00pm. The club leaders are working to make sure that the time fits everyone’s busy schedules.
If interested in joining the club, or even just to sit in to hear an opinion opposite to yours, you can contact Professor Donald Douglas at ddouglas@lbcc.edu.