Secular Student Alliance
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Founded in May of 2000, The Secular Student Alliance (SSA) is the only independent, democratically structured organization in the U.S. that serves the needs of secular high school and college students--be it providing advice for campus group leaders, or creating community for isolated secular students. The SSA began when members of the Campus Freethought Alliance student executive council voted to break ties with the Council for Secular Humanism to form an autonomous group.
The SSA's mission statement is as follows:
The underlying purpose of the Secular Student Alliance is to bring about a society in which the ideals of scientific rationality, secularism, and human based ethics flourish. Whereas many other organizations already exist to spread these values to adult populations, the SSA focuses on fostering these values among high school and college students.
Our mission is to organize, unite, educate and serve students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific rationality, secularism, and human based ethics. Specifically, we seek to support students and student communities that seek:
- 1. To educate student activists to effectively run freethought organizations.
- 2. To raise student awareness of issues of importance to the freethought community and the benefits of freethought.
- 3. To educate the public and our own communities about the civil rights of atheists, agnostics, humanists and freethinkers.
- 4. To defend the right of freethinking students to organize, meet and promote their views on high school and college campuses.
- 5. To foster a cooperative environment where the freethought community works together to achieve shared goals.
- 6. To influence existing communities such that, and create new communities in which, atheists, agnostics, skeptics, humanists and other freethinkers feel comfortable in their views.
- 7. To educate the public and our own communities about the value of reason, science, critical thinking, skepticism, and openness to new ideas.
- 8. To defend high education standards, especially when attacked by proponents of irrationality.
- 9. To educate the public and our own communities about the value of human based ethics and compassion.
- 10. To promote and encourage thoughtful and critical attitudes toward superstition, supernatural claims, pseudoscience and the paranormal.
- 11. To promote positive and correct ideas about non-religious lifestyles.
- 12. To raise critical awareness of religious extremism.
- 13. To educate the public and our own communities about religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
- 14. To educate the public and our own communities about the value of respecting people regardless of their religious views and learning to cooperate and coexist with them.
The SSA has two paid staff, Executive Director August E. Brunsman IV and Campus Organizer Lisa Swinehart.
External links
- The Secular Student Alliance (http://www.secularstudents.org)
- A brief history of the Secular Student Alliance (http://www.secularstudents.org/primer/history.html)