By Hannah Gray
Martin Luther King, Jr. led a wave of sit-ins in the 1960's to protest racism and segregation.
Following in King's footsteps, dozens of UP students practiced their own civil disobedience on MLK Day: They skipped class - in violation of university policy - in order to participate in an MLK service event involving about 1200 college students from throughout the Portland area.
UP freshman Adriana Alexis was among them.
"I was involved in the coordinating and planning ... for the past four months. There was no way I wasn't going to go," Alexis said. "Their mission is teaching, faith and service, so they can't be disappointed because I went out and served."
Alexis and other students believe the University is hypocritical for prohibiting excused absences for taking part in service projects for MLK Day.
"The fact that they won't send people out to serve is hypocritical," Alexis said. "Teaching, faith, and service - practice what you preach."
Senior Alyssa Schmidt-Carr, ASUP vice-president and co-president for the Black Student Union, who also participated in the MLK service day, agrees that the administration should have allowed excused absences.
"(Service) is a mission of our school, and on such an important day, there's no good excuse for UP to not do anything," Schmidt-Carr said.
Students from 11 colleges and universities in the Portland area, including UP, gathered at Concordia University on the morning of MLK Day before fanning out to various service sites in the area. Among other things, students cleaned up parks, refurbished schools and wrote letters to the elderly.
"This (was) making history instead of studying it," said Laura Goble, the director of the Moreau Center for Service and Leadership. "There are very few large scale opportunities, and this is an opportunity we are hungry for to reaffirm our commitment to the University's mission."
UP and Linfield College are the only schools among the participants that hold class on MLK Day, a national holiday. However, Linfield left it up to the professors' discretion as to whether to excuse students participating in the service day, whereas UP maintained a policy of no excused absences for service day participants.
"First and foremost, you belong in class," the Provost Br. Donald Stabrowski, C.S.C., said. "Doing volunteer service is something you add on. It enriches what you do in the classroom, not supplement it."
Stabrowski said that the University does not excuse students from class lightly.
However, because of the policy, some UP students who wanted to participate in the MLK service event could not.
The event originally had 120 UP students sign up, while only 50 participated, according to Bethany Sills, assistant director of Student Activities and Multicultural Programs coordinator.
"I was really upset I couldn't go," junior Meghan Kirk said. "I would've liked to see it in action... However, school's first, that's why we're here."
Stabrowski suggested organizers of the event did a poor job of getting the word out.
"I didn't know anything about it," Stabrowski said.
On a related note, at the ASUP meeting on Nov. 23, 2009, a student senator asked Br. Stabrowski about the possibility of UP canceling classes for students to participate in MLK service. According to the minutes from that meeting, Stabrowski said that if UP cancelled class for MLK day, many students "wouldn't be doing service" and would just take the day off.
Three years ago, the administration decided to give students a week-long fall break in lieu of national holidays, such as MLK day, Veteran's Day and Labor Day, according to Stabrowski.
Regardless, many students involved in Monday's service event said the UP unexcused absence policy on MLK Day was inexcusable.
"Having an administration not support us 100 percent doesn't cut it," said sophomore Marshawna Williams, co-president for BSU.
