By Haley Saikin
The National Student Leadership Conference (NSLC) at American University in Washington, D.C. session two includes nine programs that cater to students’ personal interests and possible career paths. Along with specific activities and classes taught by college professors, students also have the opportunity to take part in off campus field trips that explore the nation’s capital, including Capitol Hill and the Smithsonian Museums, along with “Washington at Night,” where students explore the monuments, memorials, and other sites of D.C. after dark.
On Friday, June 24, The Supreme Court overturned the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade, which for the last 50 years had given women the constitutional right to obtain legal abortions. With The Supreme Court being located in Washington, D.C., along with the immensity of protests that have been spiraling throughout the nation’s capital, NSLC leaders had to quickly readjust their programming at AU to try to ensure students and staff’s safety while off campus.
Haifu Owen, a student in the Political Action & Public Policy program at NSLC session two, said he noticed a difference in the nation’s capital.
“I didn’t see anything related to the recent protests during the Washington at Night trip, but there was definitely a ridiculous amount of people there compared to when I’ve visited D.C. in the past,” Owen said.
“The influx of people visiting the nation’s capital was because people may have come to town to participate in protests during the day and decided they may as well stay and visit the monuments at night,” Owen said.
Just after the decision to overturn Roe v Wade was made on June 24th, the Political Action & Public Policy students were loading a bus to visit the House of Representatives to hear from a congresswoman. However, immediately after the decision was made, protests and press conferences had already taken place around The Supreme Court.
“We had just gotten on the bus and were given box lunches, just sitting there waiting to leave,” David Wallace, Political Action & Public Policy program student, said “Then, a few minutes later, one of the scheduling coordinators came on and told us that there was no way we would be able to get up to capitol hill right now.”
He said “Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, was about to speak on the exact spot we were about to go to.” With the immediate cancellation of the trip, Wallace said that he then got off the bus and ended up staying on campus and watched the news and did other activities.
NSLC AU Logistics Coordinator and Film, Journalism, and Media Arts Program Director, Peyton Proksch, was a part of altering the schedules for programs, depending on when and where the students were going on specific days, and whether or not it would be safe.
“When a program is in the middle of rescheduling off campus trips, that program is then on campus for a different period of time then expected to be, so that means we have to find them a place to go on campus that is not assigned already, which can be challenging at times, but we have been able to figure it out very well,” said Proksch.
With the rescheduling of off campus trips and activities, Proksch said “Students are still getting the same experience, just maybe in a different order than originally planned for.”
Proksch said the preparation for the program done in advance has really paid off. “We plan really well before and have everything done in advance of the program, so when things come up hours beforehand, we are able to change course pretty quickly since everything else is already so organized, we have the freedom to focus on the current problem and let other things run themselves,” she said.
Dany Fischer, a Team Advisor (TA) for the Film, Journalism, and Media Arts program said she had a challenging job during this time of protests. With the protests, Fischer said her job has been “to make sure that buses are where they need to be on time, and to make sure that all students are safe and within the trips assigned boundaries at all times while off campus, but still having a good time.”
Fischer said “There was some fear from myself personally that on our Capitol Hill day, there would be lots of traffic because of people trying to get to the area where The Supreme Court is, and some fear that our Washington at Night trip may also have to be redesigned on the fly incase of any upcoming Supreme Court statements, but so far the protests have yet to interfere with us.”
Fischer was also TA for a previous session of NSLC. She said both sessions provided their own challenges.
“Last session, I was not nervous going into field trips, but there ended up being unexpected logistical problems that I had to deal with,” she said. “This session, I have found myself anticipating problems due to current or potential protests, but have yet to have big problems.”
Students were able to walk through the Smithsonian Museums. Even though the boundaries were cut smaller than usual, Fischer said “it ended up being more fun than before, because students were covering less ground, which meant that there wasn’t as much meaningless walking happening across the wide boundaries.”
While the situations NSLC AU has faced this session have not been what was anticipated upon arrival on June 23, the program has been able to reshape activities within a matter of hours, and run as close to normal as possible during this time.
“I know there is nothing unexpected that will come that we haven’t prepared for in some way,” said Fischer. “Oftentimes it can be a fun and interesting puzzle to have to form a response to something unexpected.”