New Political Society hopes to spark debate on campus

The New Political Society (NPS) is a debate forum for undergraduate and graduate students to engage in rich political discourse on local, national and global issues. The idea for the forum was originally conceived by juniors Sarallah Salehi and Avi Posen during Intersession last year, and the group launched this fall.

Article I of NPS’s constitution states that “any undergraduate or graduate student shall be admitted as a general member by simple petition to the Executive Committee,” “all members of the General Body shall participate in the election process” and “both undergraduate and graduate students of the General Body are eligible for Executive Committee elections.”

“We felt there was a lack of open dialogue about politics on campus and discussion was internalized in the different groups that existed on campus,” Posen said. “The New Political Society’s aim is to liberate those internal dialogues and create an overarching one.”

The forum strives to create an environment where a diverse set of political views can be expressed and, ultimately, contested.

“We accomplish this aim through various methods,” Salehi said. “Firstly, and most conspicuous, is our speaker series. Secondly, we will be organizing political debates on the key political issues facing our world. And finally, we will be bringing in faculty to give their opinions in a faculty lecture series.”

The New Political Society is run by an Executive Committee, which will be composed of Chair Salehi, Vice Chair Posen, Chief Whip Robert McLarnon and appointed Cabinet members. The three major executive committee members — chair, vice chair and chief whip — are all elected annually in April and serve a term of one year beginning the following semester. The Cabinet positions include Chief of Events Planning, Chief of Public Outreach, Chief of Marketing, Chief of Finance and Secretary.

Anyone can join and become a general member of NPS. Salehi noted, however, that certain expectations will accompany membership in NPS.

“Being involved initially as a general member is a critical prerequisite if someone would like to move up to the executive board,” Salehi said.

This fall, NPS will host five speaker events and six guest speaker events.

“Each of these events deals with a different topic,” Salehi said.

The series aims to touch on novel and controversial points of discussion.

“Their idea[s] ha[ve]n’t been brought into the main stream of discussion, yet [they do] possess substantive validity,” Salehi added.

Guest speakers will range from a former chief of staff to Gen. Colin Powell, who served as U.S. Secretary of State from 2001-2005, to a New York Times best-selling author and economist. The forum is designed to attract students from all disciplines.

“In order to garner attention from all fields, we must politicize seemingly apolitical subjects,” Posen said. “For instance, there are many questions [regarding] the role of energy and engineering in topics such as foreign policy and urban planning.”

The forum is not designed with political correctness in mind.

“In fact, the ideal might be to inflame political debate,” Posen said. “The issue is not necessarily to be safe.”

A concern with political correctness is not at the forefront of the forum; according to NPS leaders, such concern could deflect important aspects of the topics that they will be discussing.

“It will be up to students how to receive the ideas that we bring to campus,” Posen said.

Nevertheless, the second point in Article III of the NPS’s constitution makes a stipulation to maintain a certain level of sensitivity when dealing with heated issues.

“The Chief Whip shall be responsible for enforcing proper discourse etiquette at group meetings and hosted events,” the constitution reads.

While NPS founders acknowledge that creating an environment of respectful disagreement may take some trial and error, the group’s Constitution serves as a template for basic ground rules of how the group will function.

On Sept. 30, the NPS will kick off its speaker series with Richard Wolff, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and director of the Democracy at Work Foundation. Wolff is well known for his work on Marxian economics, economic methodology and class analysis. As a whole, the line-up is intended to generate interesting and thought-provoking discourse. NPS will be inviting all students, faculty and members of the greater Baltimore area to attend.

“We would love to include as many people in our democratizing mission, whether they are students or members of the community,” Salehi said. “We hope to attract as much attention as possible and get as many different groups of individuals to attend our events, because we think our speakers talk about issues that pertain to all Americans.”