OrangeBanding together

JMU organization elicits national initiative

In the spring of 2003, the little-known, four-member Civic Engagement Committee of the Community Service-Learning Office met to discuss how they could complete what they saw as an almost impossible task — finding a way to engage the JMU community.

The group’s idea was to encourage students to discuss their views without taking a side — something they found was not always an easy sell. "The Iraq war situation was unique in that there was a sense that if you’re talking about it, you’re against the president, and I think that confused the issue," said Kai Degner (’03), The OrangeBand Initiative, Inc. coordinator and founding member. The group distributed orange strips of fabric to students who were willing to discuss their views — and so OrangeBand was born.

This first campaign was all that originally was planned, but after summer vacation, the OrangeBand group wanted to continue what they’d started. The second campaign of public awareness — now called an Action Campaign — was planned for the fall. Rather than address one issue, it covered three — one international, one national, and one local. A third Action Campaign in the same format followed in the spring.

This fall’s action campaign, "Issues in the Upcoming Election," breaks with the standard three-faceted approach. There are forums sponsored by 15 different on-campus organizations during the two weeks leading up to Nov. 2. The first forum, a debate modeled after the first and third presidential debates, featured the College Democrats and College Republicans. "We had such thoughtful questions from the audience," said junior Lucy Hutchinson, coordinator of the JMU chapter of OrangeBand. "I was really proud — this was the first time [College] Democrats and Republicans have gotten together."

OrangeBand also has begun to expand outside JMU — a process that began last spring. The spring Action Campaign included a forum where JMU students serving in the military returned from Iraq and shared their experiences. This forum was picked up by C-SPAN and aired on the international cable network. "We had e-mails as close as [Virginia Military Institue] to Washington state to Princeton to Denmark to the Philippines." Degner said. "People from eight different schools contacted us, wanting to start chapters."

OrangeBand didn’t have the resources to expand that quickly at the time, but a second OrangeBand chapter was founded at Eastern Mennonite University last spring.

To unite and organize the chapters, The OrangeBand Initiative, Inc. gained status as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization this summer. The organization is a separate entity from the JMU chapter — organization of campus OrangeBand activities is left to the school’s chapter. "We’re here for advice and to provide direction and make sure that they maintain a strong chapter," said Ernest Toney (’04), OrangeBand outreach coordinator. "What we’re doing is publicizing, using our chapter as a model."

While OrangeBand has enjoyed the support of JMU staff and organizations, it still faces challenges.

"We have to always remain sensitive to the fact that the nature of what we’re doing naturally attracts people from the left," Degner said. "It’s the responsibility of OrangeBand to make sure we involve people from both sides."

While gaining acceptance as a non-partisan group initially was difficult, now that OrangeBand has three semesters of credibility, it’s more of an accepted aspect of the organization’s identity, Degner said.
Expansion to other schools is the dominating theme in OrangeBand’s future. This spring, JMU’s OrangeBand chapter will host the OrangeBand Student Engagement and Leadership Conference. "The idea is to invite students and have them go through a training process," said senior Megan Dunphy, chapter coordinator for the not-for-profit arm of OrangeBand. These students then would return to their respective colleges and start chapters and Action Campaigns there. Once these chapters are in place,

OrangeBand hopes to travel with the band Midnight Spaghetti and the Chocolate G-Strings to promote the organization. "We’ve partnered with them a couple of times, so we decided to do this cross-country tour to paint the country orange," Dunphy said. "We can reach a lot of people."

By spreading the idea of OrangeBand across the country, the organization hopes to engage the nation in dialogue over current issues. "We can discuss issues and say whatever we want," Dunphy said. "Without that, we’re not going to progress the way we should.

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