May 6, 2022

The 2021/2022 academic year at Michigan Tech is in the books, marking the first anniversary for Huskies for America. The annual program concluded with a banquet for the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter at Michigan Tech, during which the most active students received small awards in recognition of their contributions to the YAF program. See selected photos. As expected, a few students graduated and will leave Michigan Tech. However, our pool of conservative students is growing and our future is brighter than ever.

During the first year, many (although not all) goals were achieved including:

1. Huskies for America started as a two-faculty organization but now involves several faculty and staff contributing to its mission on a monthly/semester basis. We also established strong links and collaboration with the local community, though our UP Patriots organization.
2. The leadership for the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at Michigan Tech (YAF @ Michigan Tech) has been replaced with students, who are more active and have better leadership skills. Also, a new faculty advisor was assigned to YAF to promote organization growth and visibility on campus.
3. With help from the Leadership Institute, we were able to recruit a substantial number of students to two organizations on campus: YAF @ Michigan Tech now has registered 55 students as compared to 12 in 2020/2021. The Turning Point USA chapter at Michigan Tech (TP USA @ Michigan Tech) has over 150 registered students and this is a completely new student organization on campus. 4) Participation of students in meetings and activities increased significantly: YAF weekly meetings involved 20-30 students, and each meeting included student presentations and passionate discussions, as compared to 4-5 students attending weekly meetings in 2020/2021, TP USA students still need to figure out their weekly or monthly activities on campus.
4. Several YAF and TP USA students went through the Leadership Institute Training on campus and some of them will continue onto the Leadership Institute’s National Leadership Training outside of campus over the summer.
5. YAF students hosted a 9/11 Memorial and Freedom Week. Freedom Week kicked off with Jarek Drelich speaking on The Gray Colors of Socialism in Poland. Students also held a celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall and invited three U.S. Veterans to speak on Veteran’s Day.
6. Together with YAF students, we hosted our first external speaker, Gabriella Hoffman, who spoke on the topic Conservation is Conservative.

We also have high hopes, and laid down a foundation, for the next academic year:

1. We have just scheduled Burt Folsum to speak on September 13, 2022. Folsum is a Distinguished Fellow at Hillsdale college and author of ten books including The Myth of the Robber Barons and New Deal or Raw Deal?
2. YAF is also planning their 9/11 Memorial and Freedom Week which will include a keynote speaker (TBA).
3. YAF will be adding a No More Che Day event in protest of the idolization of Che Guevera by today’s progressives.
4. TP USA is a new organization and we will be working to develop events and programing that will increase our visibility on campus.
5. TP USA and YAF are looking at hosting a nationally recognized speaker at least once a year. For example, Scott Atlas is considering a visit to Michigan Tech. His presentation fee was negotiated, but his busy schedule might make this visit difficult in fall.

In our view, this first year’s effort was a breakthrough for conservatism on campus. It has helped many students feel more comfortable speaking up about their conservative ideas and values on campus, and helped others develop a better understanding of conservative concepts and how they measure up against Marxist/ Socialist/Communist ideas. We could not have done this without generous support from supporters of Huskies for America.

THANK YOU!

Stay connected with us! We have much more work to do.

Jarek Drelich
Lynn Artman
James Walker